


Come, Sail Your Ships Around Me

by JuweWright



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Back to Hogwarts, Break Up, Cover Art, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fanart, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Loneliness, Love, Multimedia, Podfic Available, Post - Deathly Hallows, School Reunion, Self-Mutilation, Unrequited Love, eventual Dramione
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-05
Updated: 2015-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-11 07:42:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 26,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1170471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuweWright/pseuds/JuweWright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five years after graduating from Hogwarts, there's a week-long reunion of the whole year. Draco never officially graduated, so he is not invited. But although he has tried to avoid any contact  to his former comrades, there's a part of him that wants to return... and be it just to see a certain young witch again, who once sent him a letter in his worst hour. But will she be able to see past his history and the marks that the War and its aftermath left?</p><p>I had to up the rating because this became way darker half way through than I had expected when I set off...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. THREE LETTERS

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I neither own Harry Potter nor anything to do with it. It all belongs to JK Rowling and that's whom I bow to in admiration. I don't earn money with this and just hope people like it.  
> "Come sail your ships around me" is a Nick Cave song which somehow stuck in my head when I began to write this. If you have never listened to anything but "Oh Children", check it out, it's another beautiful song.  
> Enjoy the ride!
> 
>  
> 
>  

He had hated her at the beginning. There was no denying that. She had been everything he despised, a Muggle, a Gryffindor, a friend of Harry Potter, an overconfident spoilt brat and a girl. When you are eleven years old as a boy, you usually don't like girls. A girl in itself is the impersonation of the unknown enemy. They think differently, they behave differently, they are not boys and they are usually not the ones to get detention because they broke someone's nose in a fight. But then, still, at eleven, the only way to distinguish a girl from a boy had been that girls usually had long hair and wore skirts. And then they had started to grow breasts and everything had become difficult because the old rules had sort of vanished from one day to the next and girls had become interesting.

He could not specify when exactly Hermione Granger had become interesting. In her case it had not been a sudden change based on physical attraction but rather a subtle process, which – admittedly – might have started when she had punched him in the face. Because she was a girl who got into trouble and who was stronger than her idiotic friend – boyfriend! - Weasley. During the time the DA had been running, he had felt so impressed by what she had started. He knew it had been her. Harry might have been the teacher, but she was the one who had been pulling the strings. And then the real war had come. He winced when he remembered how aunt Bellatrix had tortured the girl in the dining room of Malfoy Manor.

He had not been back there. His parents had wanted him to come and join them, when they tried to flee persecution. But he had stayed. He had faced the one trial that he had needed to face and had walked out of the court room a free man. But a free man of whom everyone knew a few pretty bad things, one of them being that he had been branded with the Dark Mark, another that he had tried to kill Dumbledore and lastly that his whole family had been involved with the Dark Lord. He had tried a lot of things to live a normal life. He had coloured his hair dark, changed his style of clothing. But applying for a job had been horrible. Finally he had been accepted to work in the Ministry of Preservation Magic, whose main task it was to keep important Muggle buildings from collapsing, and this was what he had been doing ever since. He had just come back from a trip to Pisa, where he had supervised the spell-renewal on the leaning tower, when an owl had rushed in through the door right behind him and dropped the heavy envelope on his head. He had immediately recognized the wax-seal and had broken it carefully. He had stroked the owl and sent it back on its way before sitting down on his old blue living room sofa. Unfolding the parchment, he had felt a bit excited. He didn't really know why. But then he had read the invitation and his heart had started beating quicker.

_Dear Mr Malfoy_

_As it is custom at Hogwarts school of Wizardry, we would like to welcome all our graduates from the year 1998. We very much hope you will be available to attend our week-long feast this summer_ _from 7_ _th_ _to 13_ _th_ _of July and await your reply._

_Minerva Mc Gonagall (Headmistress)_

And somehow that Granger girl had immediately popped into his head. He had not seen her since the battle. He had not heard from her for five years. Well, apart from the fact that she was still dating Ronald Weasley and had started to train to become a teacher. And of course that she had reversed the Obliviation spell on her parents after the war... there had been a huge article about that in the Daily Prophet about the “happy family reunion”. Had anyone ever asked him what he thought about a reunion with his former school-mates he would have shaken his head and straight out declined. But now that letter was in his lap and the picture of a brightly smiling Hermione was in his head.

And then the second owl banged down the chimney and landed on the carpet leaving ash stains everywhere. There was a second letter in its beak and Draco suddenly felt cold. He picked the letter up. It was not a formal one. The paper was thinner and the seal had only been applied with just enough care to still make out the Hogwarts coat of arms. He opened it with trembling fingers, already suspecting the worst. It still hit him badly.

_Dear Mr Malfoy_

_As you are probably aware the invitation that reached you has only been sent out to you by mistake. I did not notice the mistake at first as the memory of you being a student at Hogwarts was quite vivid in my memory and I had almost forgotten that you did not attend school for most of the last year and did not – in contrast to a few other students who had also been unable to partake in the regular classes – attend the summer-school that we were lucky to be offered to run in the rooms of the Beauxbatons Academy of Magic whilst Hogwarts was restored to its former glory. Therefore I have to disappoint you and withdraw your invitation for this summer._

_I hope you are well. Best of luck._

_Minerva Mc Gonagall_

_PS: I have to say here, Mr Malfoy, that I really regret having to send this letter, but I have to apply to the rules and regulations just as well as anyone else. Be assured that your exclusion from the event has nothing whatsoever to do with days long gone by._

Draco dropped the letter, slumped down on the sofa and closed his eyes. He had not thought that it would hurt this bad. The worst thing was that he totally believed that Mc Gonagall would never have excluded him because of his history. She was like all these really great witches and wizards he always had despised because his parents had taught him all their big-hearted tolerance was a mask and a role that they played. He had learnt that there were really great men and women in this world who were willing to give everyone a chance even if they had failed badly in their lives. He had learnt it the hard way. He sighed and tried to suppress the feelings that were welling up inside him. His parents had stopped trying to contact him. He had no friends. Most of the time he coped well with solitude but sometimes solitude turned to bitter loneliness and then it was almost unbearable. The prospect of going back to Hogwarts had been like sunshine on his soul. He knew it would have meant a lot of bad looks and probably a cock fight with Weasley-boy, who now thought he was the king of the world and went prancing around the globe as a Quidditch reporter. But it would also have meant he would have had a chance. Not with everyone of course.

_What are you thinking?_

That voice in his head that always sounded exactly like Bellatrix. He hated that voice. He wanted to smash his head against a wall to make it stop.

_What are you thinking, Draco, darling? She hates you. How could she not hate you after what I did to her. It's in the blood. Our blood. The true blood of the Malfoys._

He shuddered and went to the kitchen to make some tea. He caught his own reflection in the window, a pale thin figure with hair that looked way too dark to be natural. He was wearing long sleeves although it was already quite warm outside. He would always have to wear long sleeves. The Mark might grow fainter with time, but it would never vanish. It belonged to him forever. He could not go back. He could not shout at his younger self to see straight and realize he had made the wrong choice. At the beginning he had still thought it was great to belong to the Death Eaters. He had wanted that power that made people fear you and respect you. But the last year – ever since he had not been able to kill Dumbledore – the Dark Lord had made him suffer for his weakness and had pushed him further and further. He made a fist and hit the kitchen table, bruising his knuckles.

The worst thing had been the realization that he had all along been following wrong ideals. Harry Potter had shown him mercy, more mercy than he had deserved, when he had not let him burn in the room of requirement. And Hermione – that amazing girl whom he had spit at and whom he had looked down on and who was the most brilliant witch of her age – had written a letter to him. His parents had not been gone for a week and his trial had not been scheduled. They had not imprisoned him, only put a tracing-charm on him similar to the trace of under age wizards. And he had been allowed to receive mail and go out and do whatever he wanted. He had not done much though. Mainly had stayed inside and wished he were dead.

He went to the cupboard where he kept the household money and also the bit of parchment. It had been re-opened and folded so often that it looked as if it would just turn to dust in his hands any minute.

_Dear Draco_

_I know you might not appreciate this letter as it is coming from me, but I believe that most of the opinions expressed by the child I knew have been revised by the man you have grown to be. The war changes people. It changed me. It changed a lot of people I know. It killed a lot of people who loved life so much... We all made decisions. When I heard you decided not to run for it as your parents did, I was impressed. It's our decisions that make us who we are and thereby with every decision we make, we change our selves. I know this sounds pathetic but I needed at least to try to explain why I am writing to you._

_I don't know whether you heard of it. I guess the Prophet wrote a short paragraph on it because they thought it was “touching”. I had to Obliviate my parents before I went to look for the Horcruxes with Harry and Ron. I guess you know what that means. There's no spell to reverse Obliviation. At least there is none I know of and I have talked to a lot of people – including Mrs Mc Gonagall – and they all told me the same. I cannot reverse the spell and therefore I am now – pretty much – an orphan. My parents don't remember me any more. But I remember them and it hurts to think that they would not recognize me if I passed them in the street and that I will never again see their eyes sparkle with pride when they hear of my achievements, that I will never again be hugged by my mum._

_I am telling you this because, Draco, whatever your parents did: Do not forget them! Although I know that the best way to protect them will be not to try to contact them, but at least you can rest assured that they are somewhere and that whatever they did and wherever they went wrong, they always loved you. I saw your dad's pride quite a lot of times and I know how much your mum loved you because she saved Harry in exchange for the knowledge that you were still alive. She probably never told you that, but this is what she did and you should never forget it._

_I am living at the Burrow at the moment. It used to be my favourite place to come to in summer. I have spent a lot of happy days here and I am glad to have friends I can turn to. But it's a darker place with Fred dead. I am not going to tell you about George and how they are all trying to get on as I know you are not too fond of the Weasleys. But yeah. I am here because I don't have a home any more although the house still exists and it still has my parents in it. I am reading a lot because I don't want to face the truth. Harry says, I am obsessed with the Obliviation spell. But what I am really obsessed with is the hope of returning home. I saw how much Harry lacked the support of his parents all through his life and almost went mad when his godfather died. I don't want to lose them. And although I am surrounded by lovely people who try to make me feel as if I belong to their family, I am really just a visitor and at times I am terribly lonely. I hope you have friends who help you pull through. Because I guess you are not that happy either._

_If you want to write to me, better don't write your name on the envelope. It might not be well-received, if Ginny or Molly accidentally got it (the owls get confused with so many people in one rather small house). I really hope you'll reply although I am probably the last person you would turn to for support._

_Well... I don't know. I hope you will be all right._

_Hermione_


	2. FAMILY

“Hermione! Good to see you!”

Harry hugged her with his usual laxness of etiquette. Hermione always had to laugh when she thought of how awkward Ron still behaved around her in comparison although they had been dating for five years. It had always been easier with Harry. But then Harry was the best friend she had ever had and even if she had played with the thought sometimes, trying whether they had potential for more was not worth ruining that friendship.

“So, are you ready to go?”

She grinned. Her mum came out of the kitchen and gave Harry the sweetest smile. Ever since Hermione had moved back in with her parents, ever since she had managed to reverse the Obliviation spell, Harry had been a frequent visitor and Mrs Granger had opened her heart wide as a doorway for “that poor boy”. Hermione's dad had been sceptical at first but when it had become clear that Harry was a friend, not a boyfriend, he had grown fond of the boy too and had taken him to the pub to watch football. They had even been fishing together. It was sweet how he had become part of the family. She had always felt close to him and seeing him in the role of a brother just seemed so right.

Ron in comparison – nothing was right with their relationship. It had started off okay enough. But with Fred dead it had become so complicated. The time she had lived in the Burrow had been difficult. Molly had been crying a lot, Arthur had shut himself up with his Muggle artefacts and Ron and Ginny had tried to make it easier for George, who clearly suffered the most but tried to be as cheery and funny as ever. She had been in the way. She had been a surplus. They had not kicked her out, because she had had nowhere to go, but she had been able to detect the moments when her presence had been unwelcome. And although it had been five years since the battle, the Burrow still seemed a place of grief. They had all changed. Harry had broken up with Ginny pretty soon because she had not been able not to blame him for the death of her brother. And Lord, Hermione had been so close to breaking up with Ron so many times. But she saw how it would make things even worse, so she stayed and tried to be helpful and supportive. It had become easier since she had her parents back and had a place to stay. Sometimes she didn't see Ron for weeks on end and it was fine with both of them. She could not imagine not seeing Harry for a week without missing him, but then Harry was on a different level. She could not compare a true, deep friendship with a love relationship.

After Mrs Granger had hugged them both (Mr Granger was still at work) they had set off for King's Cross. Naturally they had linked elbows just three steps out of the door and were discussing everything from Harry's latest encounter with a half crazed potion maker who had been poisoning love-potions to Hermione's issues with the subject of Muggle studies – the books were antiquated and pretty much everything was very badly researched – until they had reached the railway station.

They immediately spotted some of the people from their year. Neville was the first whom they bumped into and greeted with excitement. They had not seen him for a while but always stayed in contact. The next one they met was Seamus, who was all about seeing the Irish Quidditch team beat the French last weekend. He had won tickets for the game and still was overjoyed he had been able to cheer his nation to victory.

When they reached the barrier between platform nine and ten, Seamus and Neville went through, just chatting away without really noticing or caring. But Hermione and Harry both hesitated in their steps.

She caught his eye and smiled.

“It's been so long ago since we did this for the first time.”

“And it feels ages ago since we last came back through this brick wall. I remember I was so scared of what lay ahead.”

“The boy who lived, the boy who faced Voldemort without batting an eyelash... You were afraid?”

“Everyone is afraid when they leave school and have to face the real world, I guess.”

“I was.”

“And now?”

“It's not too bad, is it? We're alive, we are here. And we can go back. I never realized that before. We can actually go back to Hogwarts and visit if we want to.”

“You will go back there and teach pretty soon.”

Hermione grinned.

“Promise you'll visit me then.”

Harry took her hand.

“Will do. On the count of three?”

She nodded.

“One... two... three!”

They ran through the barrier and stumbled onto Platform 9 ¾. The steam train was already waiting for the visitors to board it. It had dropped of the students returning home from Hogwarts only a couple of hours before. The platform was full of young adults. Some of them sported a look of devil-may-care. Others openly showed their delight to get back onto that train and once again see the place where they had spent most of their teenage years.

Harry dropped Hermione's hand as if it had turned into hot iron. She followed his gaze and saw Ron and Ginny standing on the platform.

“Why did she accompany him?” Harry murmured.

“Should I...?” 

“No.” He shook his head. “You go to your boyfriend now. I'll just go in and find us a compartment. See you later.”

With that he was gone and Hermione walked up to Ron and his little sister.

“Hi, honey.” She smiled and kissed him on the cheek. 

“Hey, Ginny.”

Ginny's gaze was still fixed on Harry with an expression of disgust that almost bordered on hate.

“How's George?”

Harry had vanished inside the train and Ginny focussed again.

“He's getting by. He's trying.” She sighed. “I guess it's never going to be all right again, is it? I mean, I lost a brother and I still feel horrible. And he... he lost his twin, that must be even worse.”

“Give him a hug from me, will you?” asked Hermione smiling. 

“Gladly,” Ginny said. “Have fun at our good old school.”

They said their good byes and then went into the carriage. They found Harry in a peculiarly awkward conversation with Cho Chang which ended abruptly as soon as they showed up.  
“What the hell did she want?” Ron asked thumping down on the upholstery of the seat opposite Harry.

“I seriously have no idea.”

“Fame, fortune and the most famous wizard on this planet... I have quite a few ideas.”

Hermione shrugged and sat down next to Ron.

It felt odd to be back in the Hogwarts Express. It was like time travelling. When the trolley rolled past, Harry got them chocolate frogs and Bertie Bott's Beans. They were students again and somehow everything felt easier.

“I wish Luna had graduated in the same year as us,” Harry said. “It's going to be odd to have most of the DA there with her missing.”  
“Hey! Ginny's missing too!” Ron exclaimed.

They all were silent for a second whilst Ron had time to think about whether Harry should or should not miss Ginny. Then, suddenly his thoughts seemed to have shifted in a different direction.

“It's our whole year's reunion, isn't it?”

“I guess so.”

“Well. I'm wondering. Do you think the Slytherins will show up? I mean Crabbe and Goyle and … Malfoy?”

He put particular stress on the last name, Hermione noticed. He knew she had written to Draco after the battle. She had told him because she believed that a functioning relationship was built on honesty. He had not talked to her for weeks after that. And he still could not understand how she could forgive Draco.

But could anyone really be blamed for the mistakes he made in a phase of his life where the opinions of parents and others were that influential? Harry had been influenced by Dumbledore and Sirius. She had been influenced by her parents who had taught her right from wrong and Ron had been influenced by his family who had done the same. Draco's family had had other ideas of what right and wrong was and he had learnt that version from the very beginning. How could he not have been tempted? How could he have withstood? She knew this was not the time and place to discuss this again. Ron never got it and she had had this conversation with Harry more than once and he largely agreed with her and would probably have offered Draco his hand in friendship now, just as the other had done as a little boy.

“I don't think they invited Malfoy” Harry said.

She looked up.

“What makes you think that?”

“Well... he never graduated, did he? I mean, we all went to Beauxbatons that summer to finish our education and he just... vanished. He never finished school, so I guess he is not going to be on the guest list.”  
Hermione realized that he was talking sense. But she was astonished how much it bothered her. All of a sudden she became aware of the fact that she had been looking forward to seeing Draco again. She had never forgotten his letter. She had kept it secret just as he had wished but she had not burnt it as he had requested. She had hidden it and never shown it to anyone. Not even Harry knew it existed. Ever since that letter, she had hoped to see Draco again. It had been a wish she had never dared to utter, not even one that she had admitted to herself. 

“Well I am mighty glad we won't have to bother what that piece of shit is up to then” said Ron next to her. With the excuse that she needed the bathroom, she left the compartment as quickly as possible, before she could punch him in the face.


	3. BLIND PASSENGER

It had been easy enough to sneak onto the train. Nobody had really checked who got on and who didn't and nobody had cared much about the brown haired guy wearing an old leather jacket and sunglasses. He had found a completely empty compartment – which was not surprising as the Hogwarts Express usually carried about seven times as many people as it did today and there was plenty of space for everyone.

He even had taken some of the stuff from the trolley. They never noticed him these days. He was not recognized on the street and he was not spit at or pointed at. He had taken care to become someone else, to alter his appearance enough to become a random stranger. At least as nobody made an effort to look closer.

It felt strange to be back on the train. He had not been sure whether he should even take the train or try to sneak onto the grounds of the school in a different way. But all the secret passages had been blocked since the days of the war and he was too weary to figure out a complicated way to do something that could be achieved with much less effort. Even if it meant being in this train and confronting all the feelings that came with it. Once he had belittled Hogwarts and all that it stood for. He had believed school was a waste of time and real life had more to offer. But on the other hand, school had meant he had had friends or something similar at least. And he had been safe. He had not felt safe ever since he had said good bye to his parents. The emptiness inside him was slowly eating away and he tried to stuff it with a chocolate frog.

He had entered the platform one minute before the train departed and thereby had avoided being seen. But it had also meant he had not seen Hermione. He wondered where she was. She was probably sharing a compartment with Weasley and Harry Potter as she had always done.

The train-ride took ages. He had brought a book to distract him, but although it was pretty interesting stuff on new transformation charms, he couldn't focus. He decided it was time for a stroll to the toilet and walked along the aisle. He wasn't afraid of bumping into anyone. They would not recognize him and nobody would ask for his name, because they would assume he was someone they simply had forgotten and would be too embarrassed to admit it. He walked past the compartment that Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan shared with a few others and nodded towards one of the girls – Lavender Brown - as if he was an old acquaintance. It was all about appearances.

Just when he had reached the lavatories, the door of the girl's room was pushed open and Hermione came out. She looked amazing. Well, flushed, annoyed, on the verge of punching someone, but still amazing. The last five years had really made her a woman. She wore her hair a bit shorter, her face was not the round face of a child any more and she carried herself with the air of someone who is confident and knows her place in the world. He once had been like that. And what was left of it?

He took a step back in case she had seen him, but she was too occupied with her thoughts to notice anyone. For a minute he considered following her, but it would have been dangerous had she found him out on the train. No. Wait. He had waited for five years. He could wait for a bit longer.

_What if she hates you? What if the little Mudblood has changed her mind? What will you do then, Draco? Will you run to your mummy and cry because the world is cruel? Oh I forgot. Mummy is far far away._

He banged the door of the men's room shut behind him. As if that could keep out Bellatrix' voice. The room was so small you could hardly stand in front of the wash basin without your legs touching the toilet seat. The mirror was old and half-blind but it still showed the stranger he had become. He took off the sunglasses. His eyes were still the same pale blue they always had been. What would Hermione Granger see in these eyes. Would she still be able to be forgiving and caring, when she looked him in the eye and saw the Death Eater, the coward, the boy who had made all the wrong choices?

He pulled up the sleeves of his jacket to reveal the Mark. It was faint, a greyish colour now, not black like a tattoo any more. He remembered how the Dark Lord had drawn it with his wand that night. It had been a painful process. He had been biting his lips so hard, forcing himself not to cry out, that he had tasted blood. Silent tears had been running down his face while the tip of the wand had traced the skull and snake on his skin. And Voldemort had laughed and moved the wand slower and slower to make it hurt more, to make it last longer.

The skin around the Mark was scarred and burnt. He had tried a lot of ways to get rid of it. It had been in vain. It would last. It would always be there as a reminder of what a fool he had been. He pulled the sleeve down again and went back to his compartment. He curled up on the seat and soon the regular movement of the train on the rails had rocked him to sleep.


	4. MEMORIES

They left the Hogwarts Express as some of the last former students. Hermione gasped for a second when the coaches drew up. They could all see the Thestrals now. Every single student from their year had at least seen one death. Back at the beginning of their fifth year neither her nor Ron had been able to see the creatures and they had thought Harry and Luna Lovegood both had gone mad. She noticed that Harry was also remembering that first time he had met the blonde little witch and she smiled.

“She should be here with us”, she murmured.

Luna had stayed in contact after all had been said and done. She was still part of the pack and a well conceived visitor both in the Weasley's and the Granger's house. Lately, she had started coming more often and Hermione had sensed a kind of developing thing between her and Harry. But she had never been good at instinctively noticing stuff like that and she might as well have been mistaken.

The coach pulled away towards the castle on the hill. As the towers of Hogwarts drew nearer, something warm stirred inside her. Oh yes, she had missed this place. She looked at Harry again. He had gone completely silent and seemed spellbound – whilst Ron was still chatting away about Quidditch and not noticing anything.

She lightly touched the back of his hand.

“Are you all right?”

He nodded, smiling at her.

“You know. This is home for me. This is the place where I first felt loved and sheltered. I just remembered that. I am so happy they did not pull it down but restored it to it's former glory after the war. They had plans of building a new school in another place but Mc Gonagall stopped them I think. I'll have to thank her some time.”

He looked up to the dark silhouette again. Through the windows gleamed a welcoming yellow light. Hermione sighed. If she felt the way she did with a family and a home in the background, Harry's feelings had to be so much stronger.

“Hey, you guys, I asked you something!” Ron exclaimed.

Half an hour later they were standing in front of the huge doors that led into the Great Hall. Just as they had done on their very first day at school. Hermione remembered how Draco had offered Harry his hand. He had been such a smug little git. She had disliked him from the first moment on and all throughout the first three years of school she had thought of him as the biggest idiot that ever walked the earth. It had not been until the year of the Triwizard Tournament that things had changed. There had been moments when the spoilt brat vanished and she could see through the surface. Draco had been a troubled mind. His father was a coward, who was too afraid of feelings to show them to anyone. His behaviour towards his son had always been respectful but aloof and distant. Little Draco was all about making his father proud, making Lucius love him. She had seen it at the Quidditch Worldcup and later that year, it had shone through over and over again and she had come to hate the father but pity the son. The night of the yule ball had been one of these special moments when Malfoy the annoying Slytherin-pupil had vanished for a split second. She had not exactly started to like him right there and then. It had been a slow process and she had not even realized she cared for him at all before she saw him leave in the Hogwarts courtyard - seeming once more his parents' pet. And then it had turned out, he had broken with his father and Hermione had been so proud of him.

“Harry! There you are, mate! There you are.”

Hagrid! Of course, the game keeper had come up to the castle to say hello. He still looked the same except for a few grey streaks in his beard and bushy mane. He pushed a couple of other people to the sides to get through to them and grinned from ear to ear.

“Oh I have been looking forward to this reunion ever since Mrs Mc Gonagall had me send out the owls.”

Harry's face was sheer delight when he hugged his old friend. Hermione was the second to almost vanish in Hagrid's embrace and Ron got a pat on the shoulder that almost sent him to his knees.

“Feels like the old days doesn't it? I still remember, when you were sent to the forest for detention, the three of you and that blonde brat...”

“Malfoy” Ron chimed in.

“Aye, exactly, Malfoy. Annoying little eejit he was, that one. Never liked him much. So... there's Mrs Mc Gonagall. Guess you'll be let into the Hall again now. See you later. Enjoy your time. So glad to see you again.”

With that he vanished, just as the crowd started pushing forward, when the doors were opened.

It felt as if they had fallen through a gap in time and landed in the past. The Great Hall had been built anew and looked exactly like it had when they had first come here. Candles were floating in the air, the sky above their heads was dark blue with the first stars slowly appearing and a pale moon floating behind a thin veil of clouds. The former students filed in and – Hermione could not help but find this slightly curious – sat down at the tables of their old houses. The war had changed a lot and people had become friends but you still knew which house was yours and where you had to sit. For a split second she considered breaking the unspoken rule and walking over to the Slytherin table, but then she followed Harry and Ron down to their old place. The Wizarding World was not yet ready for a Muggle-born Gryffindor taking a seat at the Slytherin table. She wondered whether it ever would be.

Mrs Mc Gonagall welcomed them with a few kind words and then said, smiling: “I know that you all need a bit of time now to find your way back and settle in and that anything I say before dinner will therefore be lost before it reaches your heads. Just a few things before the feast begins: There are no corridors forbidden to any of you this week.” She winked in Harry's direction.

“Whoever thinks venturing into the forest is a good idea: Just make sure you take a wand with you, as there might be some magical creatures running free. Mr Filch made me promise to say that if you break something, spill something or do something incredibly stupid that would compromise the safety of others it's your responsibility and he is not going to clean up after you. You'll have to take care of it yourselves, as you are now officially adults. Duelling in the hallways is still forbidden and anything purchased from Weasley's Wizard Weezes should be used with care and consideration of health and safety. I guess, that's pretty much it for now. So, I hope you enjoy dinner.”

With this, she clapped once and the tables immediately filled with more food than any of them had seen in one place since they had left school.

Ron's eyes widened.

“Merlin's beard! I forgot how amazing the food was.”

Hermione and Harry simultaneously shook their heads.  
“Liar!”

“You've been going on and on and on about how much you missed the feasts at Hogwarts for years now.”

“And you've driven Molly half mad with it.”  
“And me.”  
“And Hermione.”

“Ah shut up you two and enjoy the food!”

There was everything they remembered from their school days. Pudding, pumpkin juice... sentimentality washed over the room like waves on a shore and Hermione saw more than one former student dabbing their eyes. Lavender had started sobbing so hard that an observant house elf had conjured up a tissue-box in front of her. Perhaps the tears had already formed a pool on the floor and were dripping through into the cellar.

Harry shifted next to her and it needed only one glance to notice he would soon be joining Lavender if she did not distract him quickly.

“Do you think we can go out to the island and visit Dumbledore's grave?” she asked. He looked up with a small smile. He knew she was coming up with this topic only to keep him from embarrassing himself by breaking down in front of everyone. The boy who lived. The chosen one. The man who started crying in his pumpkin juice.

“I guess they won't have anything against that. Do you? I mean, we're allowed to go into the Forbidden Forest, so I guess a trip to that island should be okay as well.”

“I think we should go there. The three of us and anyone who wants to join.”

“That would be me!”

Neville had appeared next to them with a plate and a goblet and sat down opposite Harry.

“Hope it's all right if I join you. I was sitting with Dean and Seamus but seriously, there's only so much Irish idiocy I can take in one go. Seamus used to be a nice chap, but since he's started working for the Ministry he's become such a prick. Walks around like a prancing Hippogriff and seems to think he's the hero of the day. One minute more and I'd punched him or stunned him or put one of George's puking pastilles in his drink.”

Hermione laughed and patted his shoulder.

“You know what is the most amazing thing about all of us sitting here together and looking back on old times? How much we have all changed and developed. I mean, you would never have stunned or punched anyone in our first year...”

“I always thought I was dumb. And my granny even thought I was a Squib for a while.”  
“And you proved her wrong and made her proud and your parents too”, Harry chimed in. “And Hermione broke the rules about a million times, which she would never have thought of before...”

“That was only due to your bad influence on me”, Hermione retorted. They laughed and it felt good and right and nice, until Ron suddenly jumped up and stormed out of the room.

Harry frowned.

“What the heck is going on with him?”

Hermione and Neville shrugged simultaneously.

“Absolutely no idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I am deviating from Jo's work here in as much that Lavender is still alive here. But who would break down and have a crying fit if she wasn't there?  
> Second thing: Yes, I know that the tomb is at the shore of the lake in the books. But I really really liked the idea of the island. I think it would be a lovely spot to be buried. And it's still Hogwarts grounds, so it would still be consistent with Dumbledore's last will.


	5. SLEEPLESS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have to say that this one just came to me in a rush and I couldn't really stop it. I never intended to have a huge flashback in any of the posts, but this one just sort of happened. Okay... so, I hope you like it. And I would consider reading something really angsty afterwards to compensate for all the fluff in here.

Draco did not sleep that night.

He had been lucky to catch a coach for himself so nobody had observed his reaction to seeing the looming towers of Hogwarts again. It had been such a long time since he had been here and back then he had hated school and had pretended anywhere else was better than here. But the pretending days were gone. There was no need to pretend any more because there was no-one left to judge him. His dad was somewhere in Africa if the rumours were to be believed and the Dark Lord was dead. His mother... he pushed the thought away before it could grow big enough to make itself known to his conscious self.

He had to face the facts: Returning to Hogwarts felt like returning home... well, not home as in “Malfoy Manor” but home as in “a place where one spent happy days and felt as if he belonged there”. He had not even noticed he was crying until the first tears had reached the tip of his nose and started dripping down.

Pathetic. Draco Malfoy crying, because he went back to his old school.

He had not gone into the Great Hall with everyone else. He knew Professor Mc Gonagall would not be fooled by a shot of dark hair or a fake nose. Instead he had sneaked down into the cellars and taken some food from the plates that the House Elves had prepared. Munching on pudding, bread and cheese he had waited in the shadows of the staircase, hearing the chatter of the reunited students inside and Mc Gonagall's small speech and had felt more alone than ever before in his life, but at the same time more comfortable than he had been during the last five years. When the doors were pushed open from inside, he just had enough time to jump behind one of the huge stone pillars to hide. He had not expected anyone to come out during the feast and was astonished to see a furious looking Ronald Weasley steaming down the stairs and out onto the courtyard. He shook his head. What had that been about? He licked his fingers and sat the plate down on the stairs. One of the elves would pick it up later. He felt a pang of remorse for a second. Damned, Granger would have hated him for doing this and taking the little kitchen-helpers for granted. He sighed and instead waved his wand to send the stuff back down into the cellar. The others would probably stay in the Great Hall for a while and chat and then head off to the Common Rooms. 

The former students were accommodated in their old houses again. They would be using the same Common Room as before and lie in the same beds. For all of them, it was really as if they had just returned to school after a couple of years of absence. He knew that he could probably get into the Slytherin dungeons somehow as long as he lingered in the corridor long enough to find out the password, but he did not really feel like going there although he did not have any idea where to rest his head - and hopefully get some sleep – instead. He had been walking along a couple of passageways that did not lead anywhere a wizard would be drawn after dinner – when he realized he knew a place that would suit his purpose just fine. It had been said in the Daily Prophet, that the school had been renovated according to the old plans. If that was really true – and he hoped that it was – the Room of Requirement would be there again too. He reached the corridor and walked up and down in front of the wall thinking about a comfy bed and a sofa and a fireplace and suddenly there was the door in front of him and he just had to walk through. And voilà, there it was, a nice little chamber, just right for one tired student. He threw his suitcase onto the bed and sat down in the armchair next to the fireplace, wondering what to do next. He was not tired yet. It was still pretty early. But what could he do? It was important to stay undetected, which meant he needed to avoid Filch and the ghosts and as many students as possible.

His thoughts wandered again and conjured up a smiling face and long brown hair. But Hermione would be in the Gryffindor Common Room now. And he still did not know how and if he should approach her. It had been years after all.

In the end he walked through the silent castle after everyone else had already gone to bed. He walked through the hallways, remembering where the Potions Classroom was and where they had been instructed in Defence against the Dark Arts. He returned to the Room of Requirement in the early morning hours when the sky was already turning red in the east, but even then he only tossed and turned in his bed without finding any rest.

What he did not know was, that he was not the only one who had a sleepless night and it was mere chance that he did not just bump into Hermione Granger who was roaming the castle as well and pretty much in the same fashion as him – by following her old routine from one classroom to the next. She had gone up to the Common Room with the others and it had been nice to see some of the old faces again – although Seamus really had turned into a colossal idiot. She had sat at the fireplace with Harry and Neville and Lavender – who had finally dried her tears and apart from her emotional overdrive had developed into a really nice witch – when Ron had come in and spoilt the evening. Perhaps it was the being-back-in-Hogwarts that somehow made him go mad. She did not know. She had thought the days of Ron being jealous of every guy she talked to were long gone by, but he almost started a fight with Neville. Harry had dragged him up to their dorm for a word, but she had not been up for more casual conversation after that and had headed back out. As there was no curfew for adults, she lit up her wand and wandered the grounds quite freely. She had a little chat with Sir Nicholas and a slightly annoying encounter with Peeves who threw chalk after her in the divination classroom but apart from that she did not meet a soul.

She was really annoyed by Ron. How could they ever be a proper couple if he kept behaving like that? Sometimes she thought, it would be best to end the whole thing, but then he would probably break down. She was the strong one. She had always been his support.

Darned, Granger, you should get your priorities right. You can't base a relationship on whether someone might be in need of support. She liked Ron. She liked him very much, but she wasn't sure whether she still loved him or had ever loved him. After all, it had been the War, their destinies had been thrown together under pretty exceptional circumstances. She didn't know whether they had ever become an item if they had not had to fight for their lives like they had been forced to do and she would never find out.

She had reached the Potions Classroom and all of a sudden – triggered by a whiff of herb scent - the picture of Draco Malfoy popped into her mind and replaced all the fussing about Ron. Draco had loved Potions. She guessed for the first couple of years. Snape had been a father figure for him just as Dumbledore had been for Harry.

“He would have gone back here if he had been allowed to join us” she thought, running her hand along the rim of one of the spare kettles which looked a lot as if one of the new students did his best to become the new Seamus and blow up everything he got into his hands.

Suddenly the memory of the night of the Yule Ball came back to her mind. She had not thought about it for a long time but now the combination of her issues with Ron and her being a bit shaken by the fact that Draco had been excluded once again and made even more of an outlaw than he already was, brought it back clear as day. She could not have remembered any of it clearer had she thrown that particular memory into a Pensieve.

_Ron and Harry had gone up to their rooms. Ron had just managed to ruin the evening for her and she felt horrible on a night that had started so promising. She had been so flattered, when Krum had asked her out for the dance and he had been endearing, an absolute gentleman. She didn't really fancy him or anything, but nobody had ever shown her as much attention as he had done and she had gone with the flow. He complimented her a lot and although he was not the brightest person on the planet, he was nice and caring. Why did Ron have to make it all look so dull now? She got up and pulled a face. She would not have Ronald Weasley – who had not even noticed that she was a girl before he had been really desperate for a partner – ruin her day. Most of the students had already gone upstairs. Only a few couples were still dancing, one of them being Neville and Ginny who both looked pretty comfortable as they were slowly turning on the dance floor. Hermione smiled. She had been so happy, when Neville had asked Ginny out. There were no feelings involved between the two whatsoever, but they both had turned out to be quite fond of dancing and they were good friends, which guaranteed for a great ball-experience. She looked for Victor but could not see him anywhere. He probably thought she had run away and had headed back to the Durmstang ship. She would have to explain this to him tomorrow. At least he would let her explain and listen. Ron never listened. That was one of the main problems with Ron._

_She turned on her heel to give up on getting rid of the bad taste the incident with her second best friend had left behind and walk up to the Common Room, when she heard a familiar voice._

“ _Where's your partner, Granger?”_

_Draco Malfoy, all smug in his suit and with perfectly combed light blonde hair, was leaning against one of the glittering ice-pillars. He had a glass of wine in his hand and looked at her with a mixture of bemusement and real concern. She looked around whether Crabbe and Goyle were lingering somewhere, ready to give her a hard time, but the two were nowhere to be seen. Neither was Pansy, which was a bit weird. This whole situation was weird. Draco never talked to her like to a human being and he also did not look at her as if she was a human being most of the time._

“ _What do you want, Malfoy?”_

_He put his glass down and lifted his hands._

“ _Listen. I know you won't believe this, but I don't have anything up my sleeve tonight, so consider this room as neutral ground and this night as a kind of truce, okay?”_

_She hesitated, then nodded._

“ _Victor's probably gone to the ship already. I had an argument with Ron which distracted me.”_

“ _Weasley being an idiot, as usual?”_

_She was on the verge of defending Ron but then shrugged._

“ _Well... yeah. Sort of.”  
Draco sniggered._

“ _Man, that boy really is dumb as a doornail. Why did he not ask you out himself, if he can't stand seeing you having a good time with anyone else?”  
Hermione was surprised to hear the Slytherin actually say something sensible._

“ _I've asked him the same thing.”_

“ _And he didn't have a decent answer I guess.”_

_Draco shook his head, then suddenly seemed to make his mind up and held out his hand._

“ _Wanna dance?”_

_Hermione stared at him._

“ _What?”  
“Granger, I was under the impression that you were smart, so please don't let me repeat a question that was asked in plain English.”_

“ _But...”_

“ _I'm a Slytherin and you are a mudblood. Yeah. I know. There's nothing any of us can change about that. But if Victor Krum is okay with asking you to dance, I would be an arse, if I pretended not to be. And after all. If anyone asks me tomorrow, I'll just say I was completely hammered and can't remember anything. This wine is strong enough to have that effect, if you consume it in large enough quantities. So, are you going to dance with me and not let Ronald Weasley ruin your day - and have Pansy Parkinson not ruin mine either – or are you going to refuse and go to bed sulking?”_

_For a few seconds they just stood there, Draco holding out his hand and Hermione wondering whether she was hallucinating. Then, she nodded and linked her fingers with his._

“ _A truce”, she said._

“ _A truce and a dance”, Draco smiled. “By the way, may I say that you look stunning in that dress?”_

“ _Don't take it too far, Malfoy. Someone might overhear.”_

_She tried to sound aloof and cool, but she really was not. What was happening here was impossible. But it was happening nonetheless and it kind of scared her, whilst at the same time giving her a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. Could there be a chance of overcoming the boundaries that had existed in the Wizarding World for so long?_

_Draco led her to the dance floor and lifted his arm so she could turn underneath. He knew how to dance, really knew how to dance. There was none of the clumsiness of Harry in his movements, none of the concentration in his face that was still permanently to be seen in Neville's eyes. And there was none of the military drill that had been so typical for Victor. Victor had been shoving and pulling her, almost harshly, which had not been on purpose but just the way he had learnt to lead a woman on the dance floor. Draco led her differently, with more ease and less pressure but still determined. She was impressed and wondered where he had learnt this. The song they had entered the dance floor to, which had been ideal for a rumba, was followed by a slow ballad that only allowed for shuffling about in cheek-to-cheek manner. She wanted to let go but Draco shook his head and pulled her closer instead._

“ _Just leave it be for tonight”, he murmured right into her ear. And she let it be. Because she was to exhausted from fighting with Ron and because she was almost sure that she was dreaming all of this anyway and would wake up the next morning with the Yule Ball still ahead of her._

_When they finally left the Great Hall together, Draco smiled curtly._

“ _Are you gonna tell anyone?”_

_She shook her head._

“ _Whom should I tell? Harry? He'd only think I'm mad and imagine stuff. Will you?”_

_Draco pulled a face._

“ _Oh yeah” he said sarcastically. “I'll put it up on the notice board in the Slytherin Common Room right next to the note with this week's password on it just to make sure everybody sees it.”_

“ _Our secret then?”_

_He nodded. For a second he seemed to consider what to do to say good bye. She saw him shift a bit just as if he was about to hug her, but then he only waved awkwardly and turned to go down to the dungeons._


	6. ASTRONOMY TOWER

The next morning started strangely. The sun shone through the half-blind window of the room Hermione had shared with Parvati. Lavender had been nice to talk to, but sleeping in the same room with her if there were other options would have been too much. Before she opened her eyes, she already knew she was back in Hogwarts. It was the smell, the combination of dust and books and the scent that the old wooden bedsteads gave off in the sunlight that made her want to pretend just for another moment she was still a pupil and this was just an ordinary day. But Parvati had never been one to be particularly silent when getting dressed and she made such a lot of noise when she got up that Hermione reluctantly opened her eyes and put on her clothes as well. Breakfast was not until nine o'clock – the reunion was a holiday after all and the early rise had been considered one of the few changes in the Hogwarts day to day routine that would not leave anyone regretting it had been made – and it had only just chimed seven so the witch decided to head out and stroll around the castle grounds. Perhaps she could visit Hagrid or go down to the lake and sit in the sun with a book just as she had so often done in the old days.

She stepped out of the main entrance, closed her eyes and let the morning sun warm her face. She'd get freckles. And she didn't give a toss, because there was nothing so amazing as sunlight on your face and being back at Hogwarts again. She almost skipped along the way when out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a figure up on the Astronomy Tower. Of course. she couldn't be certain. Any rational observer would have said that the distance was too great to distinguish anyone in particular up there, but a strange feeling had crept into Hermione's chest. She was pretty sure she knew who would be drawn to that tower more than anyone else in the castle. And if she was right, this someone should not be up there alone.

She walked up the stairs at a quick pace that made her pulse quicken. Just as she had expected, it was Harry leaning on the railings and looking down. He had not heard her coming, so she deliberately shuffled around and stamped her feet more than was necessary when she approached him, until he turned around.

“Hermione”

His voice sounded hoarse.

“You should have told me you wanted to go up here. I would have joined you.”

“I know. I thought I should better do this alone.”

She frowned.

“Bad idea?”

Harry sighed and pushed away from the railing.

“Asinine idea. I really should have told you.”

She touched his hand lightly and smiled.  
“As it happens, I seem to have come anyway.”

For a while they just stood there looking out towards the lake.

“I asked Mc Gonagall” Harry finally started speaking again. “Met her, when I came up here. She seemed to know exactly what I was up to. She's all right with us visiting Dumbledore's grave – those of us who want to.”

She nodded.

“I told you she wouldn't have anything against it.”

Again silence fell between them.

“I still remember that night” Harry said. “The night Snape killed Dumbledore. I know he did it because Dumbledore had asked him and was dying anyway, but it doesn't make it any better. I still dream of it sometimes.”

“I know” she murmured and, when she caught his eyes, shrugged. “I'm sorry Harry, but you talk an awful lot in your sleep.”

She saw the unshod tears in his eyes and saw the pain. There was still a little boy inside this young man who had lost his father-figure on this tower.

“Oh come on” she said and pulled him into a hug. She could feel the tension leave him, when he finally gave in. He had tried to be brave for a long time but he never had to be brave with her. She had seen his best moments and his worst moments and she still was his best friend and nothing would ever change this.

***

Draco could not help trembling when he walked up the stairs to the Astronomy Tower. He had not wanted to come. He really had not thought about that day, when he had faced Dumbledore up here and a bunch of bloodthirsty, determined Death Eaters had stood by, waiting for him to deliver the final blow. Bellatrix had teased him and he had so badly wanted to do it, to make her proud, to make the Dark Lord proud, to make his father proud. But he had not been able to do it. He had not been able to kill a defenceless wizard. And then Snape had done it and he had been so relieved. So relieved and so shocked. Shocked by the death of a man whose name he had only ever spoken with contempt. That night had been the moment when he had realized there was no way he could do the Dark Mark justice, there was no way he could be a proper Death Eater and delight in destruction the way Bellatrix did. His whole image of himself had shattered with one crucial blow and he had been left empty and unable to do anything but run along with the mob whom he no longer belonged to. There had not been a way back to the good side and there still was no way back. Those who had chosen the dark side in the war once, were now either in Azkaban, fleeing like his parents or living as social outcasts like himself. They would never be integrated into the Wizarding Society again. Their fate had been sealed forever.

He had not expected anyone else to be up that early. And if anyone was up that early, he had not expected them to be on the tower, so he almost staggered onto the roof without precaution, which would have meant running right into Potter who was looking miserable. Potter had been up on the Astronomy Tower as well that cold night which felt like yesterday but had been years ago. They shared the same memories and although they meant different things for each they weren't pleasant for either of them. Draco decided to hide in the shadows under the stairs and wait for Potter to go down for breakfast. He had not been waiting long, when determined footsteps were coming up the winding staircase. He just managed to cast an invisibility charm before Hermione Granger stormed past. leaving behind her the scent of ginger and lemon grass. Draco inhaled deeply without recognizing what he was doing and kept watching her. She went over to Harry and after exchanging a few sentences, the boy let her pull him into an embrace and buried his head on her shoulder. Draco felt a pang of envy and suddenly Bellatrix was back in his head.

_Now what is this Draco? Wanna be pitied by a mudblood? Now you see, he is Harry Potter, he is the hero. All the girls love the hero. You are not a hero, Draco, you are scum, worse than scum. You failed the Dark Lord and you failed being a good boy because you did not have the balls to stand up for your beliefs. She would never hug you like that, but spit at you._

Before he could grind his teeth in dismay and tell the voice in his head to shut up, another pair of steps was heard and Weasley showed up. The redhead took one glance at the scene and went completely frantic. Draco shook his head. That guy had a serious self-confidence issue and an absolutely toe-curling lack of dignity. Ron went up to Harry and Hermione, pulled them apart so rudely that Hermione stumbled and fell to her knees. Without taking any notice of his girlfriend, he punched Harry in the face with his fist. Draco winced. Damned, that had looked as if it hurt a great deal. And there was a pretty big amount of blood even for someone who had seen quite a few bad wounds during Quidditch matches and fought in the War. Had Weasley just broken Potter's nose over Potter hugging his girlfriend? Had he really...? By Merlin's beard, now that idiot started shouting and hitting even more. Potter didn't even defend himself. Obviously he had not yet realized what was going on.

Hermione had gotten up again and was trying to pull Ron away, who was much too heavy and too agitated to take any notice. Suddenly, the expression on her face changed and she drew her wand. She cast the spell without uttering it and the two fighters were blown apart by a gust of wind. Dear, she was a brilliant witch. Harry landed quite smoothly, taking the momentum to do a back somersault and get onto his feet again, but Ron hit the railing with his head. That must have hurt, but although Draco wasn't really in the I-love-Potter-fanclub, he would have agreed that Weasley deserved a bit of pain for the mess he had made of his best friend's nose. It had already started swelling and turning all shades of blue and green.

“Ronald Weasley” Hermione fumed. “What exactly do you think you are doing?”  
Ron stared at her with pure hatred in his eyes.

“What _I_ am doing? What are _you_ doing up here with him?”

She shook her head when it finally dawned on her that he would not or did not want to understand.

“Seriously Ron, this is pathetic.”

“You making out with my best friend isn't pathetic, it's cheating!”

“I am not making out with him!”

“Well it looked a whole lot like it!”

Hermione started pacing up and down. Draco knew she always did that, when she was annoyed. She had already done it when she had still been an eleven year old annoying know-it-all.

“It was a hug! How many times do you think I have hugged Harry in my life! He's my best friend, too. Remember?”

“Oh yeah” Ron's voice was pure venom. “And he's such a good friend, he's at your house all the time and your dad's fond of him and your mum loves him... whom do you want to make a fool of, Hermione? I am not as dumb as you think I am.”

She shook her head.

“No. You're worse.”

Her voice had dropped about an octave and was very calm now.

“I am sorry, Ron” she said. “I should have ended this long ago but you breaking Harry's nose over this hug, which you would have understood, had you only for one second thought about what this place” she gestured around the tower “means to him... it just gives me the reason I always waited for. Ron, we can't go on like this. You're jealous at everyone I talk to. You were jealous at Neville yesterday, for heaven's sake! And you never see past your own petty mind. You never did. I should have ended this the summer after the War but I didn't because of Fred and because I wanted to help you through it. I played along and was the shoulder to cry on while at the same time I felt like the most lonely, miserable human being on this planet. Well, perhaps second most lonely, miserable human being, but I guess you get the point. You never helped! You never noticed! Because you never cared!”

She quickly brushed the tears away, that had welled up in her eyes although she had not wanted them to.

Ron stared at her. His face was blank.

“You never said you were lonely.”  
She sighed, her shoulders sagging about two inches.

“Ronald Weasley, you never said you were sad, you never said you missed your brother. You just behaved in a way that made me notice... I really wanted this to work, Ron. I really wanted this to... to last. But how can it last? I don't see it. I'm sorry, Ron. Perhaps somewhere out there, you'll find a girl who doesn't make you feel inferior and whom you can trust more than you can obviously trust me. I just can't go on like this.”  
Ron gulped. He might have expected a row. He might have expected shouting and tears. But he had not expected Hermione to break up with him, that was pretty clear. Draco had not expected her to take these drastic measures either. But he had to admit, she had a lot of style.

“So... you're breaking up?”  
“I just did.”

“And... what now?”  
“I guess now you go down these stairs and I will fix Harry's nose and then we will follow you. And you will behave like a normal person and we will be polite and nobody is going to shout abuse at anyone or start hitting people. And perhaps we can just do what we should have done long ago: Go back to being friends.”


	7. FRIENDS AND FOES

It happened to be only very few students who wanted to visit Dumbledore's grave. Hermione was surprised to see Cho coming along with Neville. Hagrid had decided to accompany them as well. He already had tears in his eyes again. Hermione could feel Harry's body tense. She wasn't sure whether it was a good idea for her best friend to go to the White Tomb, but she remembered the day in Godric's Hollow and how it had seemed to lift a weight off his shoulders when he had first seen his parent's grave. Sometimes it was good if people had a physical place to lay their grief. Neville kept up some light conversation to keep the silence from falling. He managed to do so without getting on anyone's nerves and Hermione was quite impressed. He had developed into quite a confident young man. The War had made him the best person he could ever have become and he had embraced his life afterwards, without struggling or looking back. In a way. he was the only one of the whole DA apart from Luna who had not been broken in one way or the other by the battle. His grandmother had still waited for him and he had been able to visit his parents with the knowledge, that he had done his fair share to revenge them.

Cho's presence was not only unexpected but just wrong. Hermione could not only see but also feel what was behind the girl's decision to join them and she didn't like it. If that woman took one false step towards Harry, she'd curse her ears off or something like that. Harry deserved better and usually he would have known that, but in his current vulnerable state of mind, he might react to Cho's flirtations and do something he'd later regret. Thanks to God, Hermione was able to keep him from harm. She had pushed the issue of Ron – who had not taken the break up well and probably would give her a hard time for the rest of the week – far to the back of her head. She could not change his behaviour nor could she change the way he had made her feel for much too long.

They reached the tomb and Harry took a step forward whilst they all stood back. She was right behind him, ready to support him, should he need it. But Harry had grown as they all had, and he turned around with a half smile on his face.

Hagrid patted his shoulder.

“Anyone wanna come to my hut for some tea?”

Cho denied, as Hermione had already predicted, but Neville nodded.

“Would love to. Do you have any rum?”

“I shouldn't give ya... aaaaah, I just forgot you're not students any more. Course there's rum, Mr Longbottom.”  
“Neville, just Neville. Otherwise I'll start calling you Professor again.”

Hagrid gave off a snorting laugh.

Hermione thought that Dumbledore would have liked the scene of them all walking to the hut together. He would have liked to know they still shared the bond they had formed throughout the last years of their school days.

Hagrid's hut was as chaotic and cluttered as always. Hermione noticed there was a new dog and a pretty weird looking creature in a cage which she had never seen before and which she was sure had not been described in any of the books she had read, which was a bit discomforting as that meant she had no clue, whether the slimy thing with the parrot-beak could do anything dangerous through the bars of it's prison.

She sat down furthest from the creature. Neville took a place on the armchair next to her and Hagrid and Harry sat down opposite them. Hagrid handed them huge mugs full of steaming tea and a flask of strong rum. Hermione only sniffed it and shook her head but Neville took a shot and Harry also put a few drops into his drink.

“So how come Weasley's not with you?”, Hagrid asked patting the huge dog who was wagging it's tail.

Harry shrugged.

“Hermione and him...”

“... we broke up”, she said staight-out. “This morning.”

“Oh”, Hagrid looked embarrassed but she shook her head.

“Don't worry. I'm fine and he will be fine as soon as he's stopped brooding and being angry.”

Hagrid nodded.

“All right. So what are you all doing now? I heard Miss Granger's gonna be a teacher here soon?”  
  


***

Draco was running. He had not expected to be seen by anyone – or rather he had expected to be seen but not expected to be recognized. Damn the day he had been mean to Seamus Finnigan. That Irish bloodhound had only caught a glimpse of him from across the courtyard before he had alerted his best friend Dean and sour-looking Weasley. Ron had joined them for talk about Quidditch after having resigned from accompanying his former girlfriend and (perhaps ex-) best friend to Dumbledore's tomb. The trio had not said much, when they had noticed Draco in the shadows, but just taken out their wands. That had been the moment when he had decided it was time to leg it. Weasley was rubbish at spells and would have been no problem, but the other two were at least adequate and even though he could have managed any of them in a duel, he knew that he could not beat all three of them at the same time. It was a question of how quickly one could cast a spell. There was a limit.

He ran as quickly as he could, cursing the whole idea of coming to this reunion week. He had been invited to be officially uninvited again. He should have stayed at home, where he was lonely but safe. Instead he had decided to sneak in and join the fun as an invisible member and now he could call himself lucky if he survived the day.

A stunning spell bounced off a tree next to him. Next, he ducked his head to avoid a fireball that had been cast by Finnegan. He had Weasley run after his wand with a quickly cast Expelliarmus, but the other two were as good as him in avoiding his attacks. And they were gaining.

He knew he was done, when he overlooked a tree root in front of him, stumbled and fell into the dewy grass.

He turned around to see himself confronted with two wand tips pointing at his nose.

“Drop your wand, Malfoy”, said Seamus.

He did. There was no way in getting out of this. He was done for. Seamus' and Dean's eyes glittered with rage and hatred.

Dean kicked the wand away and laughed.

“Remember what Moody did in our fourth year?”

Draco winced. He knew what was coming. The next moment he was about ten inches long, had white fur and was being bounced up and down by a laughing Dean. He remembered he had squeaked when Moody – or rather Barty Crouch Junior with a little help from a bulk of Polyjuice Potion – had turned him into a ferret back in the days. He did not squeak now. He had lost everything else, he would not lose the last bit of dignity he had left.

They turned him back into a human soon enough, but he knew that was only the start.

“Someone should have told you, you're not welcome here any more, Malfoy. It seems you still have that lesson to learn.”

Finnigan's smile was cold as ice when he lifted his wand.

“Levicorpus”

That was the first step. Humiliation. They pulled his trousers down, they forced puking pastilles down his throat and laughed when he got sick. They had him spin in the air until he did not know which way was up. And then came the moment when he knew the next step would be painful. They were not allowed to use the Cruciatus Curse of course and they weren't dumb enough to do so. But there were other spells that could hurt just as much only nobody had ever cared to ban them. Snape's Sectumsempra - which luckily neither Dean nor Seamus nor Weasley, who had rejoined them at some point between the ferret and the puking, knew of – had nearly finished him off in the bathroom when Harry had used it in their sixth year.

It turned out that Seamus knew a spell that could break bones like glass. He started with his fingers. The pain was excruciating and although he had sworn he would keep his calm, Draco could not help but scream in agony. And all the way they were laughing and enjoying the show. They pulled up his sleeves and he felt a wand tip as hot as a red hot iron burn his skin. A flash of memory waved over him. The Dark Lord drawing the Dark Mark and smiling at him all the while. The pain had been even worse but although Voldemort had taken his time to finish it, it had been over at some point. This would never be over. When they had finished with his arms, they sent him to his knees and started kicking him. After a while he closed his eyes and embraced unconsciousness when it finally came to him. He was ready to die. They had every right to hate him and laugh at him, and torment him. He just couldn't face the pain any more. Just when he had drifted off into the darkness, he heard a furious voice and a tripled “thud”. Then, everything went quiet.


	8. CAUGHT

He woke up to the sound of a woman being furious. The voice was familiar as was the anger in it. When he opened his eyes, he found himself in the care of Madam Pomfrey, who was just fixing his index finger with a wave of her wand. Behind her, he could make out Dean, Seamus and Ron who were faced by Professor McGonagall who obviously was in a rage.

“... he was not allowed to be on the grounds, yes. That's the only argument you have for your actions. But just being in the wrong place at the wrong time has never been an excuse for anything. You can't just run around and attack people and torture them just because you don't like them much. Yes, don't look at me like this Mr Finnigan. What you did down there was nothing less than torture. And you don't have any justification for it, because Mr Malfoy did not do anything to merit these... horrible measures. Your behaviour was positively medieval and you've disgraced your house with it. All three of you. You're grown men now and I expect you to think before your actions and not to behave like a band of bubble-brained bandits.”

She paced up and down and Draco could not help but remember Hermione doing the very same thing on the Astronomy Tower not that long ago.

“Did you say something, boy?”, the nurse asked and leaned closer. Draco shook his head. Damned. He had actually whispered Hermione's name without noticing it. He had to be more careful or they would think he was trying to kill the young woman or whatever else they imagined him to be capable of. He knew, he would always be the bad guy in their eyes. But was he really? He had been witness to the hatred Seamus, Dean and Weasley still kindled in their hearts, but Madame Pomfrey did not seem to be interested in whether he was a former Death Eater or not. He noticed she had tried to do something about the cuts they had given him. She had even put a bandage around his arm to keep the wounds from bleeding. It must have taken a while to do all that, so she had seen it, she had been confronted with it for a while and she seemed not to care. And McGonagall was not shouting at him right now but at his three tormentors. But then McGonagall had always been one to go straight for the rules whether they were consistent with her personal opinions or not.

“All three of you, pack your bags. I want you out of here before dusk. No, Mr Finnigan, there is no need to say anything now. I don't give a toss whether you work for the Ministry now. This is my school and I say you will just turn around, go through that door and make your way to your rooms to fetch your things. I will have Mr Filch escort you to Hogsmeade. You can either take the train or borrow a broomstick as long as you get out of my sight before I lose my temper.”

The door closed behind the three of them and Minerva McGonagall exhaled audibly.

“Children”, she murmured, turning around and coming towards the bed.

“How are you Mr Malfoy?”

Draco shrugged and winced when a bruise on his back reminded him of its existence.

“I'll survive.”

He had wanted to sound smug, but it came out differently. He sounded like a little boy, who had just been beaten up by some bullies on the playground.  
“Dear, dear”, the headmistress shook her head. “I probably won't have to tell you that your actions have been foolish. You were not invited to the reunion. Yet you came here and almost got yourself killed by a trio of Gryffindors who accidentally mislaid their brains.”

Draco chuckled – and stopped immediately because one of his ribs had been badly bruised and hurt like hell.

“I am not going to ask you for your reasons to break the rules and come here”, McGonagall went on. “They are obvious to me.”

_Oh no, they are not._

She might guess some of the truth, the part of the truth that included him having been happy in Hogwarts and feeling somewhat at home in the castle. But she would never guess the main reason why he had come. Even Minerva McGonagall's mind did only reach so far.

“The fact is, Mr Malfoy, that as you are not a guest, I have to treat you as an intruder. I had to inform the Ministry and I will have to lock you up in a cell until they have decided what your punishment is going to be. I just hope they will agree with me. that no harm was done by your presence and you have already been punished enough.”

She sighed.

“When I realized, you had never graduated and therefore were excluded from the reunion, do you know what I felt? I felt relief, Mr Malfoy, because that meant you would not be confronted with a whole lot of people who will never be able to forgive you for being misled once in your life. Had I needed to invite you, I would have been forced to have at least two guards assigned to you to keep you safe. What I had not expected was, that you would be foolish enough to come here on your own without my knowledge and without any protection whatsoever.”

Draco saw her eyes wander. She looked out of the window and the evening light fell on her profile. She had aged over the last couple of years. She had not been young, when she had first opened the doors to the Great Hall for them, but now she seemed ancient and tired and weary.

“Do me a favour, Mr Malfoy. Don't listen to the likes of Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan. They will make you believe that you were born bad and will always stay a bad person. Nobody in this world is born evil. Not even Voldemort was born evil. It's a choice you make and I think I know when you made yours and it was not when you got that disgusting thing on your arm.”

She stood up and smiled at him.

“Madame Pomfrey will bring you up to the cell as soon as you feel well enough to walk. I tried to make it as comfortable as possible, but there are only so many things I can do and whilst Professor Dumbledore had pleasure in annoying the hell out of the ministry, I usually try to get along with them, so I will have to keep you confined. I am sorry it came to this.”

_It had been about a month after he had settled down in his new flat, when the urge had become strong enough for the first time. He was the only wizard living in the building and usually no wizards ever visited this part of town. He had tried to fit in and trained the owls so they did not crash against his windows when anyone else was watching. Most of the time, they came down the chimney now. That meant he had to use a cleaning spell on the carpet from time to time, but it also meant he could live a normal life. At least that had been the plan. It had not worked out though. The truth was that he didn't sleep for days on end because he feared the dreams he had every time he closed his eyes for more than five minutes. The face he saw in the bathroom mirror had become even paler and thinner than it had ever been. He did not eat much, because he never seemed to feel hungry. Sometimes he just completely forgot to eat until his blood sugar level was down to the minimum and made him dizzy. He had bought cheap alcohol and expensive whiskey. Neither of them had done the job. They just made him sleepy and sleep meant dreaming and he did not want to dream any more. Over and over again he heard his voice utter the words he now regretted so much. He had said them, because he had believed it was the only way to keep his parents safe, to help his father and also because he had been proud the Dark Lord had asked him. He would be the youngest Death Eater of all times. It had seemed an honour._

_It was late in the evening and he had sat on the sofa reading the Daily Prophet, when sleep had once again caught up with him and he had nodded off. He had woken up with a start right at the point where the Dark Lord had pulled his wand out and he had pulled his shirtsleeve back to become branded._

_He had been all sweaty, his hair clinging to his forehead. Like a sleepwalker he had pulled off his shirt and taken out his wand. There had to be a way to rid himself of the Mark, there had to be a way to rid himself of the past. The pain had cut like a knife but while the skin around the Mark had blistered and started to give off a burning smell, the Mark itself had remained intact. He had tried until he broke down in a fit of tears with the temporary relief of having tried._

_There had been more and more occasions like this and when he had tried every spell he knew, he had moved to Muggle knives and razor blades. None of it had been able to harm the Mark itself only the skin around it now resembled a strange landscape of craters and scars. He knew he would never be able to remove what the Dark Lord had imprinted on him. But he still kept trying, because trying made him feel better – if only for a while._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... this is the reason (together with the torture-scene) why I felt I had to up the rating. I really don't know where that dark stuff comes from.


	9. SAVIOUR

Hermione, Neville and Harry had just returned from Hagrid's hut and sat down in front of the fireplace, when Ron burst through the hole behind the portrait with an expression on his face that spoke of murder. Behind him came Seamus and Dean who didn't look any better.

“What the heck is going on with you guys?” Harry asked with a frown.

Ron threw his hands up.

“We are expelled from the reunion because of Draco f***ing Malfoy!” he exclaimed.

Hermione stopped breathing for a second.

Harry stared at the trio.

“Can you repeat that in a way that doesn't sound as if you've all three turned into lunatics?”  
Seamus sat down in the spare armchair.

“The ferret somehow sneaked in. He must have been hiding on the grounds since we arrived. He's had his hair coloured, but apart from that he's still the same old idiot. We caught him half way down to the lake.”

“You caught him?”

“Yeah. I saw him in the courtyard and we followed him down and ...”

Seamus stopped mid-sentence and threw a glance at Hermione, a glance that she knew all too well and which see had seen way too many times ,when she had been a prefect.

“You followed him?”

“Well... we hunted him down.”

“And then? What did you do?”

Seamus and Dean exchanged a glance which resembled a mutual understanding they would not tell anything, so she turned to Ron.

“Ron? What happened?” she demanded. She knew he would tell her. He had never been able to keep his mouth shut when she had commanded him to spit it out.

“Ah, we just made him jump a bit, gave him a bit of a hard time.”

She stared at him, knowing that that was the very top of the iceberg she was about to discover. She could see the guilt in all of their eyes. They had done more than just give the Slytherin a bit of a fright.

“What kind of a hard time?”

Ten minutes later, she had left the Common Room. Harry had wanted to come with her, but she had told him to stay put. She couldn't believe it. They had been through a war. They had seen death and violence and they had had more than enough of it. And now her ex-boyfriend, whom she still considered part of her family and two people whom she had fought along with on the good side, had tormented a defenceless person. They had been embarrassed to tell her, because they knew she would disapprove, because she knew the rules and liked to stick to them. But she had seen the glint of pride in their eyes. And then she had seen Dean fumbling about with a wand, which looked suspiciously like the one Draco usually carried. It turned out they had taken the wand and never given it back. It had taken her two stunning spells and a muggle-kick to the right parts of Dean's body to get the wand and now she was racing down the hallways towards the tower. She trusted Mc Gonagall. She would have trusted that woman with her life. The problem was that she did not trust the Ministry or pretty much anyone else – apart from Harry and perhaps Neville – to do the right thing. The prejudice against former Death Eaters was great and they were treated worse than squibs by the Wizarding Society, sometimes even worse than house elves.

She ran because she knew there was only one way she could ensure they would not send Draco to Azkaban. It meant breaking a lot of rules and risking her whole future as a teacher, but she could not let them take him to that prison. He would break like a twig. She knew the letter by heart, the only letter he had ever sent her. She heard the words in her head, when she took two steps at once and finally reached the top of the staircase.

She panted. The sun was slowly setting in the west. It had been cold when Sirius had been imprisoned up here and he had had a cell with four stone walls and no comfort or shelter. Mc Gonagall had clearly not been happy about the fact that she had to take these measures this time and had provided a sofa and a carpet that almost made the cell look comfortable – had there not been the huge iron bars on the door.

Draco looked up when he heard her coming. His eyes were bloodshot and there was a huge bruise on his cheek. She saw the bandages around his arms and the awkward way he sat on the sofa which spoke of pain.

“Let's get you out of here”, she said, before he could ask anything. She did not fiddle with the lock but just blasted it with a Bombarda spell.

“Can you walk?”

He nodded and tried to smile, which did not look as convincing as she had hoped.

“We've got to make it down the stairs”, she explained. He nodded and walked slowly towards the door. But she could see, he would not be able to get down his every move betraying how heavy a blow the guys had dealt him.

She had rushed up here without a real plan and this was the result. They would be caught. It could only be minutes. Darned, Granger! What did you read all those books for? A huge shadow suddenly appeared over the railings of the tower.

“Can I just put that down as the first time Hermione Granger had not planned something properly?”, Harry said with a smile jumping from the back of the Thestral closely followed by Neville.

Hermione ran towards him and pulled him into a fierce hug.

“Do you know what you are doing?”, her best friend asked quietly.

She shook her head.

“I'm improvising. - Sort of.”

He nodded.

“Get him away from here”, he said. “Stay away from Diagon Alley, Hogsmead and anywhere else, where wizards tend to gather in packs. And take care.”

She kissed the scar on his forehead.

“Thanks” she murmured. She hugged Neville as well, who helped her get Draco onto the beasts back. The Thestral lifted them off the roof just when the door flew open and half a dozen official-looking Ministry employees stumbled onto the platform.


	10. A HIDEAWAY

He had thought he was hallucinating. Madame Pomfrey had given him some serious painkiller-potion which was not working half as well as he had hoped it would. The rib still hurt like hell and he was pretty sure one of the bones in his left leg had been damaged. The light turned her into just a silhouette but he had recognized her from the way she moved and then from her voice but only when she had blasted the lock had he believed she was real.

He was clinging to the back of the Thestral with the gracefulness of a sandbag. She was sitting behind him, supporting him with one hand whilst steadying herself on the back of the animal with the other. She would have to face the court for this. Her post as a teacher might be endangered. Had she not thought about that? Why had she decided to help him? Why had Potter and Longbottom not hesitated to do their bit? Longbottom was the biggest surprise. After what Bellatrix had done to his parents he would have had the right to hate every Malfoy on this planet forever.

Dracos mind was racing but he could hardly keep his thoughts in order as the painkiller wore off and he felt every single bruise on his body again.

“Are you okay?”, Hermione asked. “You're trembling.”  
He shrugged – and winced.

“I'll be fine.”

He could almost hear her frown. Instead of saying anything she had the thestral change direction. Half an hour later they landed in front of a small house beside a lake.

“My parent's holiday home”, she explained. “I had hoped we could make it all the way tonight, but I guess I underestimated just how much of a prick Dean Thomas is.”

She helped him down from the Thestral and steadied him, when his leg gave way. He hated showing his weakness. He did not want to be weak. Not in front of her. Not after all these years.

Hermione got the hidden key from somewhere at the back door and they went into the house. Although the place had been vacated for a while, it still looked cosy and comfortable. She sat him down in one of the living room chairs and knelt down in front of the fire place to get a fire going. As soon as the flames were dancing merrily, she stood up and went to the kitchen. Draco saw her open a metal case on the wall and use some switches. She used a strange kettle to boil water for tea. This was a Muggle household he realized and she was doing things the Muggle-way although she was still carrying her wand. She caught his eyes and smiled.

“It's like a switch in my head. As soon as I am in a Muggle environment I almost forget how to do simple things with magic. I don't use my wand at all when I am at my parent's house. Harry thinks it's funny.”

Draco didn't think it was funny. He thought it was interesting.

“You look white as a sheet”, the witch said with a frown. Then suddenly, her face lit up. She rummaged around in one of the drawers and then came back into the living room with two mugs of steaming tea and two white pills which she handed to him.

“Take one now” she ordered. “And if it doesn't get better after half an hour, take the other one as well.”

He looked at the pills suspiciously.

“Muggle painkillers”, she explained with a shrug, sitting down on the carpet at his feet. “I don't have the ingredients here to make a potion, so you'll have to make do with what is available. Contrary to the belief of most wizards, other people know how to help themselves pretty well.”  
He obligingly swallowed the pill and leant back on the sofa.

His mind was racing. He still didn't understand why she had risked so much for him.

He had closed his eyes for a minute. When he felt her fingers touch the back of his hand he looked up again.

“Are you going to be okay?”

She sounded concerned.

He nodded.

“I won't bite the dust any time soon. Your boyfriend and his two companions were interrupted before they could take it that far.”

She got up from the carpet and sat next to him on the sofa.

“He's not my boyfriend any more.”

Draco nodded.

“I know. I was on the Astronomy Tower as well.”

For a few minutes none of them said a word. Then, Hermione frowned when she noticed the bandages around his arms showed blood stains.

“I'll have to change these”, she decided, relief in her voice. She was happy to be able to do something.

Draco froze.

“You don't need to...”

“I will have to check on the wounds anyway” she replied and went into the kitchen to get salve and new bandages. Draco could not help but be impressed by all the stuff Muggles kept at the ready. But he could not let her see his arms. She had been so nice to him, had behaved as if the past did not matter at all, as if he was just a friend whom she wanted to protect from harm. How would she react when she was confronted with the visible proof of what he had been?

She met his gaze when she returned and understood immediately. Sitting down next to him again with her knees pulled under, she started untying the knots of the dirty bandages. She started with the right arm, sharply drawing in the air through her teeth when she saw the damage. The words “Death Eater” had been scratched deeply into his skin over and over again. Her fingers were cold and soothing when she applied the salve. She concentrated on the task and therefore gave him the opportunity to study her closely. She had not aged much throughout the last five years apart from the obvious changes he had already noticed. He had never been as close to her as this and for the first time he noticed the freckles on her nose and her cheekbones. He wanted to touch the spots, to trace the lines of her face.

She had finished with his right arm and wanted to go on to the left. He tried to pull away, but she did not loosen her grip on his hand.

“Believe me, Draco. I know you've got the Mark. I'm not going to lose my calm when I see it. Just be a good boy and let me do this, otherwise the wounds might become inflamed.”

He winced when she removed the cloth from the open wounds. He would have wished Finnigan and Thomas had managed to scratch away the Dark Mark but they had only harmed the skin around it just as he had done himself so many times.

Hermione drew back with a muffled shriek and covered her mouth. Tears welled up in her eyes. He did not want to see her cry. In an attempt to hide away the brand, he pulled at his sleeve, but she stopped him immediately.

“What have you _done_?”

It dawned on him that her reaction had not been because of the Dark Mark when she started tracing the scars that covered his skin around the edges of the skull like white strings. Her hands trembled, when she touched the relief he had cut into his skin in many attempts to get rid of the past and the thin red lines that Seamus' wand had left.

“Oh my God, Draco”, she murmured, tears streaming down her face.

He did not want to see her cry, he did not want her to be hurt, but he was not sure whether there was anything in the world he could do to make it better.

Suddenly she had thrown her arms around him and buried her head on his shoulder. He patted her back clumsily, stroked her hair and tried to breathe regularly and not wince because of the weight she put on his bruised rib. She noticed nonetheless and pulled back shaking her head and brushing the tears away with the back of her hand.

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be.”

He did not say that she had been the first person to hug him in five years. That the last person to hug him before that had been his mother and second to last person before that had been the Dark Lord, but she was a smart girl. She probably knew anyway.

She changed the bandage on his left arm and then checked for the state of his hand which was still coloured every shade of black and blue but at least Madame Pomfrey had done her best to have his bones grow together in the right way.

Hermione stroked his left hand which was the one Seamus and Dean had spared and carefully leant against his shoulder.

“I still can't believe they did this to you.”

He shrugged. It didn't hurt any more. The Muggle medicine had done its job. He felt light headed and more tired than was right but at least he did not feel the pain any more.

“It's only logical they should react like this.”

She looked up into his face with a thoughtful expression.

“You really expect everyone to hate you, don't you?”

“I still don't understand why you don't seem to hate me. I hate myself enough to be fine with everyone else doing the same.”

She looked hurt, but didn't respond for a while. The fire was still burning merrily and they both stared into the flames. None of them could have said who was the first to fall asleep.


	11. NIGHTMARES

_Aunt Bellatrix' voice was echoed loudly in his ears as he walked through the dark corridors. There was no light to be seen anywhere. No doors led off the straight and narrow way that wound like a serpent leading him ever further down, down, down into the darkness._

  
_“You are a shame for your family, Draco. You're the weakest link alive since Sirius bit the dust. The Dark Lord doesn't want to see it but you are not worthy to wear the mark, not worthy of his respect. You are almost as bad as all these filthy blood traitors.”_

_The voice seemed to vanish and he took a deep breath, but there she was again. This time he could see her. She was waiting for him. Her face shone white, her black hair looked as if the wind was playing with it. But there was no wind down here, no breeze to have that effect._

_“Ickle Draco thinks he is better than us now. Ickle Draco thinks he will be free of his ancestry some day. But I tell you, you will never be free. We will haunt you in your dreams. We will follow you wherever you go. When they see you, they will always see us. You will never be one of them.”_

_The voice trailed off and the corridor vanished to reveal another scene. He saw himself back at his apartment. A bottle of Firewhisky sat on the table, a glass next to it. The bottle was half empty and the movements of the young pale man sitting on one of the chairs were slightly uncoordinated. The boy drew his wand, then pulled back the sleeve of his black shirt to reveal the scorched and burnt skin around the still all too visible Dark Mark._

_Some of the wounds were recent and covered with a thin brown crust. One quick flick of the wand reopened them. The young man watched the blood trickle down his arm, crimson on parchment white, his face expressionless._

_Determined, he murmured another spell. The tip of his wand began to glow orange, then white like hot iron. He sat the tip down on the Mark. He had expected the pain but he still gasped when the wooden wand met the flesh and the skin started smouldering._

“Draco?”, Hermione's voice sounded concerned.

He opened his eyes and needed a second to remember where he was and why. The Muggle born girl looked down on him, her brows raised. She looked tired and her eyes were slightly glassy as if she had been sleeping and had just woken up herself. When she noticed he was awake, she relaxed a bit an forced a smile upon her face before getting up and putting more logs into the fireplace to rekindle the fire that had almost burnt down.

Draco watched her in silence.

“You screamed in your sleep”, she said, hesitating in her labour and turning towards him.

The firelight made her face look younger as it blurred all the contours. It also let her hair look like a mane of fire, a fierce lioness, beautiful and deadly if angered.

“It's been a while since I heard anyone scream like that”, she stated with a hoarse whisper.

Suddenly the lioness was gone and she was only a girl that had seen too much cruelty at too early an age. Draco got up noticing that the Muggle medicine seemed to do its job and settled down next to her on the hearth rug. Unsure what to do to wipe the look of pain and sorrow off her face, he stroked her hair with his uninjured hand feeling incredibly clumsy. It had the intended effect after all. She smiled again, shaking her head as if to get rid of the memories that had arisen before her inner eye.

“You know what, Draco Malfoy. We're so alike.”

He stared at her in disbelief. Did she really mean that? She couldn't be serious. She had always been on the honourable side and fought for the right course. She was a heroine. Her story was the material for countless modern legends.

She looked down at her hands, then shuffled sideways on her knees so their shoulders touched lightly.

“We're both broken. We've both seen worse than was good for us and done things we will regret until the end of our days. I know it's not just you and me. Pretty much everyone in our generation, everyone who fought in the war, saw too much death and heard too many cries of pain. But most of them were taken care of by their friends or their families right afterwards. Most of them had some kind of safety net and someone whom they could talk to. My parents – even now that they know me again and remember I am their daughter – they don't understand. I could tell them about what happened and they would listen, but they can't fully comprehend, they can't take any of the weight from me.”

She shook her head.

“I'm sorry. I didn't want to say that. You'll probably think I am mad.”

Draco shook his head. His left hand stroked her hair again, then came to rest on her shoulder. For a split second he heard Bellatrix' crazy laughter in his head before it drowned in a panicky mantra of “You're completely mad.” She would think him preposterous. She would draw back in disgust. She would regret having saved him from the Ministry. She would...

But Hermione did not pull back, did not shrug off his hand or try to escape his grasp. She seemed surprised for a wink and then she leaned forward and met his lips half way. It was only a quick brush like a butterfly settling on a flower for a rest before taking off again. Her eyes had a strange gleam in them, when she leaned back and smiled.

“You should get some more sleep”, she decided returning to her usual bossy self and assuming her role as nurse again as if nothing had happened.

“Do you think you'll have that nightmare again?”, she asked.

Draco shrugged.

“Let's say it like this: It is a constant companion. I rarely sleep without dreaming stuff like that.”

She frowned, then seemed to have an idea. She helped him up and sat him back on the sofa, pushing him down so his head rested in her lap.

“Go to sleep”, she said, her lips brushing over his forehead. “I'll keep watch and shush all those nightmares away.”

Draco closed his eyes. He could feel her fingers playing with his hair while her other hand rested on his upper arm in a half embrace as if to shield him against all woe. He could hear the fire cracking and felt the warmth issuing from the flames on his face. He felt Hermione's breath, steady and slow and heard the wind howl outside.

It did not take long ere he drifted away into a dreamless and nightmare-free sleep.


	12. PARENTS

The smell of freshly brewed coffee wafted through the cottage and made Draco wake up. He felt more refreshed than he had done in years. As if a heavy weight had finally been lifted off his chest. Hermione was preparing breakfast in Muggle Fashion. She had found an old t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants somewhere in the house and looked very much unlike the witch he knew. Her hair was bound in the neck to keep it from falling into her eyes while she was stirring something in a frying pan. He got up slowly – the pain was back – and walked over to the kitchen table leaning against it. Hermione looked up with a smile on her face.

“I hope you're okay with scrambled eggs, bacon and toast. I apparated into the village to buy them, so they're fresh and non-poisonous. Everything in the fridge was outdated by months. I think some of the stuff might have developed into new life forms.”

Draco nodded and smiled. He usually didn't have breakfast and only downed four mugs of coffee in the mornings, but that was only because he could not stand his own company that early on in the day. The fresh bacon smelled delicious. When reality settled in, it was almost too much for him though. Hermione Granger had rescued him from the Ministry although that might cost her her job. She had kissed him last night and she was now making breakfast for them both.

Only two days ago he had been the loneliest and saddest person on earth. It felt unreal to be happy, to be glad.

They sat down to breakfast. The coffee was strong and hot and the eggs tasted lovely.

“You said something about you hoping to make it all the way last night. So this is not the final destination you had in mind?”, he asked between two bites of buttered toast.

She nodded and blushed slightly. Suddenly she seemed self-conscious.

“I was thinking I might take you to my parent's place. The Ministry can't really show up in a Muggle area, blast the door open and take you away to Azkaban. That is – they can, but they will have to fill out a shitload of forms before they do, so they will avoid that.”

He stared at her in disbelief.

“You... you want to take me to your parent's house?”, he asked hoarsely.

She nodded and shrugged.

“I thought it was a sensible idea.”

“But... I thought that... they might...”

Hermione laughed.

“Oh Draco. They don't know a lot of stuff about the war. They know the general outline. They don't know about you. I never told them. I told them about you being a git during our first couple of school years but it's likely they... won't be able to remember that.”

He noticed a wince at her last words. So the restoration of Mr and Mrs Granger's memory had not been 100% complete. It must be horrible for their daughter to find there were little bits and pieces missing due to her having cast the Obliviation charm – even if it had been a measure of protection.

“Anyways. They'll like you. You have perfect teeth. My parents believe that perfect teeth are a sign of good breeding.”

They both laughed and the atmosphere shifted from being slightly awkward to being comfortable in a second.

“So. I'm going to meet your parents?”

She grinned.

“If you feel fit enough to ride a Thestral.”

“I might need some more of your Muggle medicine to survive that.”

They set off right after breakfast. The air was cool but the sun was shining and Draco could not help but feel this was a beautiful day. He could hear bird song underneath them when they flew over the woods. From a nearby village, a church bell tolled. The country looked peaceful. As peaceful as it had looked for five years now. The shadow had lifted, but it was the first time that it had lifted for Draco as well. Hermione was not too bad in steering the Thestral. Draco had seen her on a broom once after their first flying lessons in their first year – the photo shoot should have won the title for most ridiculous thing ever and had been published in Witch Weekly to celebrate the “golden pair” Hermione and Weasley – and knew she was anything but a closeted Quidditch player. On the back of the animal, she seemed at ease though, as if she was used to it. But she couldn't have flown a lot of Thestrals in her life.

She seemed to notice his contemplations and turned her head so she could look him in the eye.

“I used to go horse riding when I was a kid. It's pretty much the same, only that normal horses stay on the ground and look a bit cuter than these guys do.”

She petted their steeds side and it made a happy wheezing noise.

The journey took them about two hours. Even with a flying horse it still took a while to cover the distance. Hermione had the Thestral touch down in a forest close to a surburban town. She glid off the animal's back without any hesitation. Draco tried to pull his leg back and follow her example, but he could hardly move. He felt sore. And the pain medication was wearing off as well. Before he could say anything, she had already pushed his foot back and held out both hands to help him down. He stumbled when his feet hit the ground and had to lean heavily on her not to fall. Suddenly she was so close. Her face was only centimeters away. She smiled, her eyes flashed and then she had quickly kissed him on the forehead and then ducked away to head towards the town. She slowed down after a few paces and looked at him with a concerned expression.

“Are you still in pain?”

“Naaah, I'm fine.”

“You look like you're still in pain. Don't lie to me Draco Malfoy. The next time I see Ron, I'm gonna kill him. Him and Seamus and Dean. Seamus will be first, he's become such an idiot since he's working for the Ministry. One should not think that I once thought he was all right. If arrogance became human and started walking around on two legs and talking, it would look and sound just like Seamus.”

 She chuckled and took his arm. He did not really need the support, but it felt good to have her next to him, so he didn't resist.

 "You know, years ago, during school, I would probably have said the same about you.”

 "Well, I called you a Mudblood as often as I could. So I should not have complained about you calling me the personification of arrogance.”

“You were the personification of arrogance.”

He sighed and frowned.

“I probably was.”

And you should have killed me, a voice in his head added. 

She stopped in her stride when she heard the strange tone in his voice and turned so they stood face to face.

“Oh dear, Draco, I did not want to do that. I did not want to say that. I don't know why I did it. I keep forgetting that... it's not funny for you at all, at least not yet. I am sorry. I did not mean to hurt you.”

He did not move an inch. He did not want to admit her careless remark had hit home, but he couldn't force himself to smile although he tried.

“Damned”, Hermione said, her lips quivering. There were tears in her eyes. Then, she suddenly, determinedly took a quick step forward and pulled him down towards her. This time it was a proper kiss, not just a quick brushing of the lips. When she pulled out of it, she did not pull her hand back but let her fingers run through his hair.

“You know I kind of liked it's original colour”, she said. “I know you coloured this to become someone else, but it doesn't look right. And you don't need to colour your hair or change anything about your appearance. You don't even need to erase the Mark. And you don't need to become someone else. You need to accept who you were and be proud of who you are now. I wish I could make you believe in yourself. Just a bit. Just enough to stop hating yourself so much.”

She was still crying but her voice was calm. She pushed back the sleeve of his shirt and uncovered the Mark and the unsightly scars around it. Her fingers traced the lines he had burnt into his skin over and over and over again. The new wounds had blended in with the old ones already. Her fingertips were cool against his skin. The next moment she did something he had never expected her to do. She bent down and pressed her lips right onto the skull. Then she looked up at him again.

“Stop living in the past, Draco Malfoy”, she murmured.

He gently wiped away the tears that were running down her face and smiled. Suddenly it seemed easy to smile again.

“Hey, you should not cry. If your parents see I made you cry, they'll never let me into their house.”

The Grangers let him into their house though. They did not only let him in but welcomed him in the heartiest manner. Hermione's mum was all smiles and “would you like some tea, young man”. Her dad asked him a lot about Quidditch – he seemed to know an awful lot about the sport for a Muggle and Hermione explained she let him read the sports section of the Daily Prophet.

“So, you are old friends and met again at the school reunion?”, Mrs Granger asked while pouring Draco's cup of tea.

He nodded. He was sitting in an incredibly comfy armchair and there was sugar-free cake and tea. It was a bit overwhelming.

“We have not seen each other for ages”, Hermione chimed in, sitting down on the armrest of the young man's chair.

He imagined someone doing that in the Manor and how furious his mother would have been because of the value of the furniture which had been in the possession of the Black family for decades.

“And we did not finish half of the catching up we had to do, so we decided to come here for a few days and just talk about everything that happened in between our school days and today.”

If Mrs Granger suspected there was something fishy going on, she did not betray her thoughts with a single wink. She was very polite, very nice and obviously inclined to like the strange boy her daughter had brought home with her.

Hermione's dad was even less suspicious and related the story of “Old Donny” who had been his best mate in school and whom he had lost sight of and only met again at their 25 year graduation reunion. The story ended with them walking into a bar and getting ridiculously smashed to celebrate. It was a good story.

They spent about an hour with Hermione's parents before Hermione asked whether it was okay if they went up to her room. Mrs Granger and her husband both smiled and told them to call if they needed anything and that there would be pizza for dinner later on.

Draco hardly made it up the steps, before he had to lean on a wall. The world was spinning around him and it was not the pain medication that made him woozy. Hermione was at his side immediately.

“What's happening? Are the meds wearing off? Has anything started hurting again?”

He shook his head and gestured for her to go ahead into her room. He followed still clasping the wall. Hermione made him sit down on her bed – a queen sized huge thing with about a dozen pillows and two dozen stuffed toys in it – and closed the door behind them.

“Are you hurt again? Can I do anything?”

She looked helpless, concerned. Her fingers were flailing through the air, as if she was unsure whether she could touch him or whether it would make things worse.

He shook his head.

“I'm okay, Granger”, he said, using the name in a way he had never used it before, giving it the stress and melody of a nickname one might use for a good friend – or a lover.

“It's just”, he chuckled to cover the tears that were about to burst out. “Your family... they are...”

He had to take a few deep breaths before he could finish the sentence.

“They are so supportive. They did not even question your decision to bring me here without letting them know you were bringing a friend. Instead they just sit me down in their living room and give me tea and cake.”

Hermione sat down next to him and leaned her head against his shoulder. She did not say anything but just sat there, waiting.

“The way they look at you, like you are the biggest miracle they ever saw. The way they love you...”

“I am sure your parents love you, too.”

He shook his head.

“Not like this... not – unconditionally.”

For a while they sat in silence.

Then Draco added:

“This is what a family looks and feels like, isn't it?”

“Well it's what a family looks and feels like for me – and for Harry, actually, they kind of adopted him.”

She seemed to follow his train of thoughts and grinned.

“They might adopt you as well, if you stay as polite and lovely as you were just now. A little less Victorian gentleman would be good though. They might think you're mocking them otherwise.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the second to last part of the story (unless I do an Epilogue, which I don't intend to do at the moment). Thank you everyone who commented on this story and who liked it and who enjoyed it. I got so many positive responses to this rather dark tale I told here... I am chuffed. Thank you so much. I promise not to take as long to write the last bit as I did with this one.


	13. REDEMPTION

“Hermione, would you stay and help me with the dishes?”

It was clear that Mrs Granger did not need anyone to help her clean the four plates and sets of knives and forks that had piled up after dinner. But Hermione knew that tone in her voice. It had been a long time since she had last heard it and it made her heart leap a little. It was the “concerned parent” voice her mum and dad hardly ever used any more. She had hated that voice when she had been in her teens, because she had felt it meant they wanted to fence her in and direct her like a puppet. But now she knew it was only a way of showing how much they cared about her. Her father asked Draco whether he played chess. Draco nodded and the two men slunk off to have a quick game in the living room. Hermione smiled as they walked out the door. Her dad had never asked Ron to play chess with him. He played regularly with Harry though – and won most of the times. She wasn't sure how well Draco played but it was possible this would be the first time in years her father lost to anyone.

“Okay”, said Mrs Granger and closed the door behind them before turning around and facing her daughter.

“We need to talk.”

Hermione shifted uncomfortably. She grabbed two of the plates and carried them to the sink before replying.

“What about?”

“This boy”, her mother's voice sounded warm but there was concern in her eyes as well. “I might be mistaken but isn't this Draco Malfoy the 'horrible git' you complained about during your first couple of years in Hogwarts? I had never seen you hate anyone so passionately. The impression sort of stuck in my head because of that, because I had seen you sad and furious before but I had never seen you despise anyone from the bottom of your heart like you despised him.”

Hermione smiled. She remembered. Her mum remembered this particular bit of information and she would have bet it had been lost. It was like a small unexpected present.

She turned the tap on and poured some detergent into the sink, before getting the other two dishes.

“I hated him, all right. He was not the most pleasant of children. Which is a huge understatement. He was an absolute idiot.”

“So... he changed, I guess”

“He grew up and found that most of his ideas were faulty. He learned it the hard way.”

“And you like him.”

Silence fell. Hermione threw the dishes into the sink with a bit too much of a splash to make it less awkward. She turned around to look her mother in the eye.

“I like him”, she said quickly and then – a little more hesitant – added: “a lot.”

“Good”, her mum said. “Because if you didn't, you would have to break his heart quickly to keep the harm done to a minimum. I've seen the way he looks at you. It's – a bit disturbing actually. He doesn't stare at you like your dad used to stare at me when we started dating at university because he thought me beautiful and clever. Draco looks at you as if you are a lifeboat and he can't swim.”

She took a deep breath.

“Listen, I know it's not my concern, because you're an adult and you have been through a lot of bad things and we could not protect you from any of it. But can I trust you that you are strong enough for this? Because I can see he's not all right. He's broken in more ways than a boy his age should be broken. I would usually have tried to keep you away from anyone like him. He's got that recovering drug-addict air around him. But then I see how much he loves you and I see how polite he is towards us and how your dad has somehow taken to him, which your dad doesn't do easily... And I … I just think I should make sure you know what you are doing.”

Hermione had been washing the dishes while listening. Now she dried her hands, walked over to her mother and hugged her.

“I love you, mum”, she said calmly. “And I think I know exactly what I am doing.”

 

Draco came up to her room half an hour later. She had been lying on her bed reading the latest issue of the Daily Prophet and looked up when the door opened.

“Hey”, he said, closing the door behind him. “So … your mum?”

She smiled and patted the mattress next to her.

“Sit down and relax. She's not throwing you out or anything. She just – noticed an awful lot, but I guess that's what mums do. And she's concerned – for both of us.”

Draco sat down and frowned.

“What do you mean, for both of us?”

Hermione rolled to the side so she could look up at him without twisting her neck. She fixed his eyes with hers.

“She thinks that you are likely to commit suicide if I break your heart. That's what it boils down to.”

Draco stared at her.

“So... what did you tell her?”

He was afraid she had told her mother the whole story. That she had painted the whole picture, given her an insight in his history and showed her just how broken he was. Hermione smiled.

“I told her I have no intention of breaking your heart.”

Draco could not help it. She was so close and her gaze was so honest. But had she really just said what he thought she had said? He felt he could not stay where he was sitting so he stood up and walked over to the window.

“Draco?”, she sounded concerned. “Did I say something?”

He turned around and shook his head. Hermione folded the Prophet up and placed it on her night stand, then slid off the bed and came over to him. Her hands lightly touched his shoulders, then slid down his arms, before her fingers finally entwined with his.

“Do you trust me?”, she asked, pulling him closer.

He would have trusted her with his life. She already owned it anyway.

 

The next morning rose and yellow sunlight stole its way into the window of Hermione's room. It crawled over the piles of books on the shelves and on the floor, lit up the world map on the wall and finally fell onto the bed where it played on the faces of the two sleeping forms until they woke up, blinking.

Draco was the first to realize where he was. While Hermione only made a grumpy sound and snuggled up closer to him, he stared at the ceiling. He had not had his nightmares. He had slept like a baby. His injuries still hurt but it started getting better. Hermione Granger was lying next to him and made an effort to squeeze him to death. He had to be dreaming still.

Just when he had finished that thought, Hermione opened her eyes and sniffed.

“Coffee”, she said, immediately awake. “Breakfast. Downstairs. Now.”

She hesitated frowning.

“Shower first”, she decided. “Shotgun.”

She placed a kiss on his cheek and was out of the room in an instant. Draco chuckled. Hermione took only a couple of minutes to shower (although she told him she would take about a year to put all the products in her hair to keep it from becoming a mob after contact with moisture) and he entered the steaming bathroom right after her. She had explained how the shower worked to him so he did not struggle with the power-switch and the Button to start the water. It was hot. Like – burning hot. Did that girl really shower at fourty-two degrees Fahrenheit? He took his time and used the shower gel on the shelve which looked the least girly – it said “ocean” on it and it smelled okay. When he got out of the shower he felt like a very clean, very happy, very boiled lobster. He looked into the mirror. It seemed like the dark rings underneath his eyes had become lighter. He did not look like he was about to push daisies any more. It was while combing his hair that a thought struck him. A smile stole over his face.

Hermione almost dropped the hair dryer when he entered her room again. She had managed to get her hair to obey the rules of gravity and had just pulled the plug when she had caught sight of him in her mirror.

“Merlin!”, she said, turning around. “What? Why? How?”

Draco smiled.

“Granger lost for words? I am impressed. You're a clever witch so how is really not a question you should be asking. What is also very obvious. And why, well, you said you liked it better that way, so I thought ...”

She crossed the distance between them in a stride and buried her fingers in his light blonde hair as if she had to touch it to believe her eyes. He knew he had not told her the full truth. This was much more than just trying to please her. This was what a Muggle psychologist would call “progress”. They both knew it, but they didn't say it.

Hermione took a step back and gave him a once-over.

“We need to go shopping”, she decided. “But before that – breakfast! I am starving.”

She took his hand as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world and pulled him out of the room and down the staircase.

The owl with the new Daily Prophet arrived when Hermione poured her second cup of coffee. Draco watched with a smile as Mr Granger got up, opened the window, opened a drawer and got out the right amount of sickles to pay the owl and placed them in the small bag that was tied to its foot. It was interesting how unimpressed Hermione's parents seemed by the magic around them. They just accepted it.

Mr Granger pulled the sports-part from the Newspaper and threw the rest in Hermione's direction.

“There you go, honey. Isn't that a teacher of yours on the front page?”

Indeed, it was Minerva McGonagall whose moving picture covered almost half of the title page. A furious intimidating looking Minerva McGonagall. Hermione and Draco simultaneously leaned over the paper to read the article.

_Headmistress of Hogwarts faces off Ministry of Magic_

_Minerva McGonagall, headmistress of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry seems to be determined to follow in her predecessor Albus Dumbledore's steps and become the Ministry's adverser number one._

_After an incident at this year's Reunion Week – which had the illustrous names of Harry Potter, Ronald Weasley and Neville Longbottom all assembled in their old school again – Minerva McGonagall has faced the wrath of the Ministry of Magic. The headmistress dismissed ministry employee Seamus Finnegan along with Weasley and another young man by the name of Dean Thomas, after they had found ex-Deatheater Draco Malfoy trespassing on the grounds._

_“There has been violence of the most disgusting kind towards our former pupil”, McGonagall explained her actions. “I am not willing to accept cruelty and torture against anyone on the Hogwarts grounds.”_

_Being confronted with the fact that Draco Malfoy was not invited to the school reunion and thus was trespassing by entering Hogwarts, the headmistress used a few words to describe our reporter which will be not repeated here. Before saying:_

_“The breaking of the rules by one party does not automatically lead to the righteousness of another party breaking more rules.”_

_It looks as if Minerva McGonagall who fought in the wars against You-Know-Who and the Death Eaters has a soft spot for her former pupil Draco Malfoy. Malfoy escaped from being captured by the Ministry with the help of none other than Miss Granger, Mr Longbottom and Mr Potter._

_The Ministry has summoned a special council with several members of the Wizengamot to decide over whether persecution of Malfoy is necessary. The Daily Prophet would advise them to also look into whether Potter, McGonagall, Longbottom and Granger are still in their right minds._

_Rita Skeeter_

 

Hermione almost spat out her coffee and put the paper down with a disgusted look.

“You shouldn't have paid that owl, dad”, she said, getting up.

Draco had turned pale. They were both about to leave the kitchen to discuss what they had just read, when a loud crack outside the door told them someone had just apparated in the Granger's front yard. The knock at the door followed only seconds later. Hermione gulped and walked to the door. Draco saw she was clutching her wand behind her back. Did she ever leave her room without it? The war had left its traces on her for sure. They just weren't as obvious as the ones it had left on him.

She opened the door slowly, but when she saw who was standing outside, she just threw it open with a sigh of relief.

“Professor”, she said with a smile. “I did not expect you.”

Minerva McGonagall looked weary when she came into the kitchen. Mrs Granger offered her a cup of coffee which was accepted and Mr Granger offered her a seat which was taken gladly.

The old witch looked from Mr Granger to Mrs Granger to Hermione to Draco. Her gaze lingered on Draco's blonde hair and a small smile appeared around her mouth. Then she saw the Prophet lying on the table.

“Ah, I see you already got the news that I put my foot in it. Only two hours out of the press and already outdated that one. And Rita Skeeter is about to lose her job. Even I blind man can see that this is not objective journalism.”

She took a sip of coffee and closed her eyes for a second savouring the flavour.

“I had quite an unpleasant start this morning. Unpleasant because it was very early indeed. The Ministry seemed to have decided to change the time of the meeting over and over again. Would not have gotten there in time if I had not had my spies in their ranks. It's like in Albus' times, really. You'd think we could all get along now that there is no threat any more that some of us want to face and others want to ignore, but no. I guess man was built to fight and if there's no common enemy we are happy to fight amongst our own ranks. I'm tired of it.”

She took another sip of coffee.

“I had a bit of a row with the Ministry and the Ministry had a bit of a row in its own ranks and then the voice of reason, represented by Mafalda, me and a few other people whose minds still work properly, won.”

She turned towards Draco.

"Mr Malfoy. I have been authorized by the Ministry of Magic to return this to you.”

She pulled out his wand and held it out for him to take. With a surprised look, he took it, thanked her and put it in the back pocket of his trousers.

“You know, Alastor Moody used to tell the story of a friend of his who cursed his butt off by putting his wand there? - Well. I think you can guess what the rest of the news is: There are two parties in the Ministry who don't like each other any more. Also, there's a very furious Mr Finnegan who will possibly want to start a personal vendetta against me. Apart from that, there's Mr Potter and Mr Longbottom enquiring whether the two of you are all right and whether you will meet them for dinner next week. Oh, and you, Mr Malfoy, are cleared of all charges and free to go wherever you wish.”

 


	14. GOOD BYE, GRANGER!

Draco's heart stopped beating for a second and then started racing. Cleared of all charges. He was free. Free to walk the streets again. He looked around and saw the Granger's eyes upon him, waiting for his reaction. Hermione was clutching her fingers. He could imagine what she was going through. Her parents had not known about the fact that he had been an escapee. She had deliberately kept them in the dark and now she feared they would be furious. He could not help her with this situation, but there was something else he could and had to do.

Draco smiled at Professor McGonagall and held out his hand to shake hers.

“Thank you, Professor. I am really glad you put a word in for me.”

Minerva McGonagall took his hand with her wrinkled long fingers and smiled as well.

“You know, Mr Malfoy, I have never been of the opinion that people are born one way and doomed to stay like this forever. My impression of you did not tolerate the Ministry's actions, so I thought I would put my foot down and tell them as much.”

Draco nodded.

“What about Hermione?”, he asked.

A bemused frown appeared on the old woman's forehead as she contemplated his question. Then, she understood what he was referring to and sighed.

“That was a bit of a debate. Helping a convict escape from persecution usually is said to be an offense. And any crime or offense committed by a person can lead to that person being forever banned from teaching at Hogwarts. It's a ridiculous rule though and as you probably know it has been overridden more often than not. There was an argument. I won. I am not going to have the Ministry keep one of the cleverest witches I know away from teaching at my school.”

She took a last sip of coffee and stood up.

“Thank you very much for this”, she said, setting the cup down on the table. “I'll better get going. I told Molly I would come round to the Burrow as soon as things were sorted out. I will see you soon, Miss Granger. Good-bye Mr Granger, Mrs Granger, Mr Malfoy.”

She was out of the door before anyone could utter another word and had disapparated before she reached the street. Hermione let out the breath she had been holding. Her mum stared at her.

“I think”, said Mr Granger turning towards Draco, “we should leave these two alone for a minute.”

But Draco had already made his mind up. The only way he could fix this situation even if it was only marginally was by pretending it had only been a case of Hermione playing the good Samaritan. It would be easier for her mother and father to accept that their daughter had just been too well-meaning than anything else. She was a good girl after all. And he was... broken. She had glued the shards together as well as she could do and he knew her feelings for him were genuine. But he had to keep her safe. Keep her away from harm and thus, keep her away from himself. This would not stay the only attack, he was pretty sure of that. There would always be people who could not forgive and forget and he did not want her to have to throw herself between him and his enemies. He had to leave. He had to go before it was too late.

“Mr Granger I am glad you welcomed me as a friend of your daughter in this house. Mrs Granger, you make the most delicious food I have eaten in a long time. But as you heard, I am no longer an outcast and I have my own flat and my own affairs to look after. I am sorry for the intrusion and I have to thank you again for being so kind towards me. But I should go now.”

Hermione's eyes went wide. She seemed to be unable to say anything, only looked at him as if he had gone mad. Her dad made a half-hearted attempt to make her stay. Her mum looked as if she was happy to see him go. Draco turned on the spot and walked out the door that Minerva McGonagall had left open behind her. He had taken a few steps towards the street when he heard her voice behind him.

“Draco?”

He turned around. She was breathing hard although she had only been running a few meters. She looked pale. Don't you see this is the best thing for you? Don't you see I am just trying to do what is right? He knew he could not let her speak. If she started talking his determination would inevitably waver.

“Good-Bye, Granger”, he said, turned on the spot and disapparated.

 

_Dear Granger_

_Thank you for the letter you sent me. I had not expected any owls to bring anything positive. Actually they stopped bringing hate-mail and howlers lately. They stopped coming at all. It's a bit as if I have become invisible. I vanished from the public eye. I guess that's it. The war is over. People are getting back into their normal rhythms again. They don't forget, but they move on. I feel like I am the only one who is stuck. I fear to look back, but there seems to be no way forward either._

_I don't sleep much because if I sleep, I hear voices in my head, voices I would rather not hear again. I was brought up believing that some things were right and others were wrong. And it all collapsed. And although I know that my father and aunt Bellatrix and all of them were blind, I still am what they made me, they are still my family and part of me still wants to impress them. The voices I hear remind me of what they would say to me if they were here._

_So, there's those who fought against the Dark Lord who hate me because I was raised as a Death Eater and finally became one and there is my family hating me, because I let them down at the final moment._

_I am nothing. Less than nothing. And now you, of all people, have sent me that letter. You, who should hate and despise me and curse my name. I have never done anything to merit your pity. I have never done anything to merit your comfort. Because that's what your letter means. Comfort in a cold, cruel world which is devoid of any comfort._

_Do you remember the truce? That night, I was free for a moment. I don't think I will ever be free again, because of the shadows of the past which keep haunting me. Every day I look in the mirror and I know I turned the wrong way at an intersection and kept walking although I knew I was heading north instead of south._

_I am sorry to hear about your parents. I am absolutely sure you will find the means to reverse the Obliviation spell. If anyone can, you are that person. You are the cleverest and most headstrong girl I know._

_Also, I am sorry to say that, but Weasley is a git. I might have realized a lot of my ideas were wrong – especially all of the “Pure-blood” wisdom my father preached to me from when I was a toddler – but believe me, I am convinced that my opinion on the weasel – not on his family but only on that particular weasel whom you call your boyfriend – is absolutely right and unbiased. He should see you're unhappy and sad and he should not leave you alone with it. I wouldn't leave you alone with it._

_Thy say, time will heal all wounds. I am not too sure about that. I hope it's true. But at the moment I feel like I am cut open and bleeding and it will never stop._

_Thank you, Hermione – it's kind of strange to write “Hermione” as I never called you by your proper name, did I? I never expected kindness from your direction and I certainly don't deserve it. I don't think you should write to me again. If anyone intercepts an owl – and I know the Ministry are intercepting owls, some of the ones carrying the howlers looked way too ruffled – it might shed a bad light on you and I don't want that. I want you to be as happy as you can and to become whatever you want to be._

_I wish you all the best_

_Draco_

 

“Hermione?”

Mrs Granger's voice was muffled by the wooden door.

“Can I come in?”

Hermione put the letter down and pushed it underneath her pillow. She had re-read it over and over again, trying to push her tears back and to avoid her brain realizing what had happened. The realization had dawned whatsoever, that he was doing it again. It was the same thing as with the letter. Draco Malfoy had a very weird sense of what protecting a person from harm meant and it mainly focused on that person being better off with him far away.

“Yeah”, she said tonelessly only half-trusting her voice.

Her mother entered the room carrying a tray with two cups and a pot of steaming hot tea. She took a seat on the bed and sat the tray down between them, watching her child inquisitively.

“So. I was right”, she said. “It's much more complicated than I thought, but in a way I was right to assume there was more destructive power between the two of you than could be healthy.”

Hermione shook her head.

“He's not destructive. Not at all. He's just trying to keep me safe.”

Mrs Granger raised a brow.

“As far as I understood he ran away from the law.”

Hermione took a deep breath. Her head was racing. Then she made a decision.

“Mum. Do you remember what I told you about Death Eaters?”

Half an hour later, the tea was empty and Mrs Granger was gnawing her lower lip.

“So you are saying that this boy, Draco, he grew up as one of these Death Eaters?”

“Yes.”

“And was raised hating people like you.”

“Yes”

“And fought on the side of the black wizard?”

“Yes.”

“But in the end he realized he was wrong and swapped sides?”

“Yes. But a lot of people don't understand what that means. You know Ron. He can be such a stubborn idiot and of course there's the memory of Fred. A lot of people have lost their relatives in the war. There is a lot of anger and a lot of hatred. And someone with Draco's background will not be judged fairly at the Ministry court. He would have ended up in Azkaban. I told you about Azkaban. It's the place where weird shadowy figures suck the happiness out of you. People in there become depressed and suicidal in days. Draco is already depressed. You haven't seen it, but he actually tried to burn the Mark off that Voldemort imprinted all his subjects with. He's broken already. I could not let them take him. I just couldn't.”

Mrs Granger nodded slowly, put the tray down on the floor and pulled her daughter into an embrace.

“But that is not all there is to it”, she said calmly, letting her hands rest on Hermione's shoulders and looking her straight in the eye. “You like that boy.”

Hermione nodded. There was no point in denying it. She had told her everything. So this bit would not stay a secret either.

“At first I only pitied him. I sent him letters. He only wrote one single response, telling me I should not write to him again because it might make a bad impression on some people. The other letters came back unopened. When I heard what Ron, Dean and Seamus had done, I was only acting because I felt I had to save him, but...”

She stopped. Mrs Granger smiled.

“I saw the way he looks at you. I saw the way you look at him. I am neither deaf nor blind, my child. If I had ever seen you look at Ron that way, I would not have dared to disapprove of that relationship the way I did.”

“You mean?”

“I mean, you should find him. I mean you should kick his butt for running off in an attempt to keep you from harm when any idiot can see that the only way to keep you both from harm is for you to stay together. Do you have an idea where he lives?”

Hermione nodded. If he still lived in the same apartment she had addressed all these letters to, she had the address memorized.

“Thanks, mum”, she said and kissed the older woman on the cheek, before running down the staircase, unscrewing the box of flew powder in the living room and jumping into the flames as soon as they turned green.

 

She landed in a very white room with very white walls. The chimney piece was very modern and very expensive and very impractical, but it was a working fireplace and that was all that mattered. The thought that Draco's apartment might have central heating had struck her a second too late, when she had already been experiencing the weird feeling of floo travel.

She had expected to come here and find the flat empty. She had expected to find Draco drugged to his ears and broken to shreds. She had not expected Draco – though accompanied by the smell of way too much alcohol – to be standing right in front of the fireplace on the edge of throwing a hand full of floo powder in it.

For a split second he just stared at her, then he grinned, a sheepish grin that wouldn't have happened if he had not been completely drunk.

“Granger”, he said, and grabbed the back of one of his armchairs for support. “You know... I noticed something. It's not working.”

He seemed to be insecure enough on his feet to fall onto the floor any second, so she just walked up to him and sat him down in the chair with one fluent motion. He kept staring at her with blood shot eyes.

“This”, he waved his hands. “All of this isn't working. I thought it would but...”

Hermione decided there was no sense in waiting for his drunken stammering to come to a conclusion. She had expected worse than this and she was prepared. Ever since she had been tramping all over England in search of the Horcruxes, she always carried a bag with an undetectable extension-charm on it with her. She rummaged around in the contents until she found what she was looking for. The small vial contained a greenish liquid of high viscosity. She unscrewed the top and put it to Draco's lips.

“Swallow! I am not talking to you in that state.”

He followed suit and the next moment went almost violet.

“Merlin's striped pants”, he finally managed to say with a hoarse voice, looking much soberer now. “What was that?”

Hermione grinned and screwed the top back onto the bottle taking a mental note she had to fill it up again.

“Hangover-Herb potion. I used to party a quite a bit in my wild years. This is what kept me going ever since I got the recipe from Madame Pomfrey.”

Draco laughed, then suddenly went serious again.

“I... I am sorry”, he said, casting his eyes down. “I didn't want you to see me in this state.”

Hermione walked up to him and sat down on the armrest of his chair. Without speaking, she unbuttoned his shirtsleeve and pulled it up so she could see the Mark. There were no new burns or scratches. She sighed with relief, then looked up, fixing his dark grey eyes with hers.

“Draco Malfoy. Will you consent to the fact that you are a mess?”

He nodded.

“I guess that's pretty obvious, isn't it.”

“Will you consent to the fact that you are much less of a mess, if I am around to keep you from going insane?”

He hesitated.

“Granger, I know where this is going but I can't let you risk your reputation...”

She punched him in the chest half-heartedly.

“My reputation is none of your concern. I am going to tell you something, Malfoy and I am only going to say it this once. I am much less of a mess if you are around as well. So, for pity's sake stop being a douche bag and come home with me.”

“You mean...”

“Yeah, home, as in: The place you were attempting to go in your drunken state just five minutes ago anyways.”

“I thought you hated divination.”

“So I do.”

“Then stop reading my mind.”

 

That night they lay next to each other on Hermione's bed. They had talked for hours about small things mainly. The big things would have to wait until they became used to this. At some point, Hermione dozed off and Draco – half asleep as well – turned on his pillow to bury his nose in her hair. Just at that moment, a piece of paper caught his eye. Only an inch of it had slid out from under Hermione's pillow. Draco felt a pang of bad consciousness as he drew it out from under her head and held it in an angle so he could read it by the moonlight shining through the window. It only took him a second to realize what it was. With a smile, he folded the letter back together and put it on the bed stand, before kissing Hermione's forehead on the way back to his side of the bed. She turned in her sleep and pulled him close with one of her arms as if she wanted to make sure there was no way he would ever leave again. As if he could have.

“I love you, Hermione Granger”, he whispered in her ear. A smile seemed to play on her face but he had no idea whether it was his words or his breath tickling her ear that were to blame for it.

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> I don't really know how I ended up on the Dramione ship. I don't have anything against Hermione and Ron and thought them all right in the canon although for me it was the obvious choice and I don't like obvious choices. I can't warm up to Hermione/Harry... why should become pretty clear in chapter 2 of this story.  
> I am trying to make this the most multimedia I have ever done with anything, so there will be audio files and pictures to go along with the story.  
> The rating went up because of self-destructive stuff and violence. I can't write smut properly, so I'll probably avoid explicit stuff and stay with implicit situations.  
> Oh and if anyone feels like they would like to beta for punctuation and general typos, please give me a shout! As a non-native speaker, I am massively rubbish at finding out where the heck a comma needs to be set and where I don't need one.


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